Why trap with kite downwind?

that was a very cold day and i had no hat.

The reason you where the only one on the wire was because thereis no such think as a constant breeze in blesso. one min you are screaming next min wind shift of 90 degrees and its all stop. i Think anyway

Biddy

Jeeeez Biddy, You look like somebody's Granda being taken for a sail !

I agree that you don't just throw yourself out the back when trapezing. On the Spitfire, I walk quite a bit forward when the wind drops and then bear off and move back as it increases again.

Biddy

Cheers for that and Happy New year by the way. How's it going with the video from the Donnie Mac? And have you started to gee up the Swords boats for the Euros? What are you doing crew-wise? Great pic of you in a 400 on your website - get a proper hat!

Second half of our Icebreaker starts on Feb 4th so I'll give it a go. We did a lot of trapese work downwind last summer but it was an old kite and I got ribbed for showboating so I caved in. Now got new cut kite so might give it another go. It wa always me out there on the wire as I am more nimble than my crew and found it easier to feel the balance out there. Gybes were always awkward though. If I was behind the rear beam then I'd have to bear off a little to take the pressure off the bow(s) so I could move forward. The come inboard while still bearing away slightly and go straight into the gybe. What sometimes happened however was that I bore off too much, The boat would slow and flatten off and I would not only be tea-bagged but thrown forward, losing my footing and starting an impressive but unsustainable body-drag. Crew got quite good at sheeting the kite with one hand while trying to pull me back on board with the other.

Ok thanks. I can kind of get my head round that.

But for it to work properly you need

a: A long enough downwind leg

b. To be consistently on one hull throughout. If you drop a hull then you have to start all over again to build up speed and bring the AW forward.

Perhaps that's my problem in that in the general club racing the legs are shorter than in a catamaran regatta. In a BF4 we would be wiring downwind anyway to keep the bows up. It's the BF3 strength where I think it's maybe a judgement call.

I think I'm pretty swift downwind. That's because we drive pretty hard downwind - none of this soaking down business -  and my crew trusts me enough to never dump the kite, foolishly beleiving that I'm savvy enough on the rudders to keep it upright. But I've not been able to establish any significant advantage in medium airs to make trapesing worthwhile.