Downwind By the Lee & an Unstayed Rig

Er

this might help

Finns pumping

Originally posted by rodney it sometimes pays to sail by the lee when surfing on waves. A bit hairy but can pay big dividends in the right conditions.

I can concur with that, I kind of discovered it by accident in the EPS, you kind of get two 'bottom turns' as we'd say in windsurf parlance, but, only when the wave speed is sufficient of course.

I've been playing with it on the lake, trying to work out why it is faster (often with disasterous consequence) it seems with the windflow reversed, the mast acts like an incredible efficient kicker so you have a very tight leech and of course a very unstable leading edge, which, wrong shifted will have you over as soon as... I'm still not sure wether actual kicker on or off is better, with it on it does tighten up the entry, but off it depowers and widens the scope for error correction, someone must know what's best I'm sure the lasers must have it dialled by now, but it is definitely faster down wind and more difficult with a soft sail than a fully battened rig to control afaics.

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by MattHarris We queried this with an RYA judge who did a talk at the club a few years back...  Apparently port/starboard is based on the direction the wind travels across the deck  Not any longer, as per the current definition posted subsequent to your post. This sort of thing comes up from time to time: folk regard what a judge or lecture or book told them many years ago as being definitively correct. No doubt it was correct *then* (assuming its being remembered correctly) but that doesn't mean its correct now. Unfortunately you do need to keep up with the rules. Still, at least its not as bad as Rugby where large aspects of the game have utterly changed from the days when I played...

Originally posted by MattHarris We queried this with an RYA judge who did a talk at the club a few years back...  Apparently port/starboard is based on the direction the wind travels across the deck

Not any longer, as per the current definition posted subsequent to your post.
This sort of thing comes up from time to time: folk regard what a judge or lecture or book told them many years ago as being definitively correct. No doubt it was correct *then* (assuming its being remembered correctly) but that doesn't mean its correct now.

Unfortunately you do need to keep up with the rules. Still, at least its not as bad as Rugby where large aspects of the game have utterly changed from the days when I played...

After sailing an stayed rig for a while I would say it is not where your boom is that matters but rather the leech of the sail is in relation to mast. Remember you will not have any kicker on at all (or very little) so your leech will twist forward. In fact you will need to sheet the boom in to control it hence when sailing by the lee many people have their boom less out than squared off on a dead run. In princple is about opening the leech. To do this further you might want to experiment with using the cunningham and outhaul too to open the leech when sailing by the lee. Goes gainst the grain when sailing down wind but you will be surprised of the result.