Muppets in Irons.

I have to say I agree with Rodney- if the boat lets you, use the hull as much as possible to do the tacking, but I can also sympathise with Craiggo- hull roll on an RS600 for example is just a no-goer; you need speed and determination tack one of those things.  I seem to recall the 300 didn't like too much roll either.   

Yes, that very thing happened, my newly arrived friend in a Laser another ex windsurfer retiring to a more sedate activity <sic> had to tack away on starboard on the lay line because I had no steerage and was drifting back down, so had he hit me or protested we were discussing in the showers after as i was bemoaning my lot in life as usual, I'd have had to do turns as well, hardly a fair and reasonable decision for what could be described as a yacht in distress.. I countered with the view that he and everyone else should have stopped racing, and come to my aid, that would be the gentlemanly thing.

Push (the Boom) Push (the Tiller) or Pull Pull is what I was taught and is what I still use today

 

Even in the 5oh it only takes 10 seconds to get going again

 

 

What to do to stop it?

- Tack with conviction and stop pussy footing around.

- Drop the kicker off (boat specific as some need it others don't)

 

 

I'm no longer quite as naive and inexperienced as I was a couple of years back and I am told that anything without a jib will go into irons at some point if certain rules aint followed, having said that you don't often see Lasers in Irons so maybe that assertion (the jib thing) aint true, however, my threshold which used to be about 12-14 kts, has raised some with this boat, which has certain idiosyncrasies in all winds when it comes to tacking, it does have a propensity for stalling and I still have yet to work out why, I think it's to do with the full batten rig and the fact the mast swivels which delays the detachment of the flow going into and re attachment coming out of a tack, which is a bit of a bind in very light winds and clearly doesn't help much when it's windy, something I'm sure a soft entry would help, not that it used to help me with the Blaze, but then that was a bigger sail and the boat was altogether different with other factors in play.

So I like to hear lots of views, then think about them all and apply them to my peculiar situation and so far this thread has helped thanks to all of you, Rodney, the Finn about which I know very little and don't profess to, but i do know it has no foil on that useless bit of metal you use to stop it going sideways, so you would have to tack the way you suggest because the Finn obviously uses it's under hull shape as a foil so I take your advice in that knowledge, the EPS is a very shallow drafted boat if you do anything other than sail it flat those wing things dig in with negative effect and it's a long way round from one wing at the front down to the back around the turret then back up the other side, I have developed a bad habit of cleating the main as i go through to set up the transfer it works great on the Alto and most of the other jibbed boats, but not so on the EPS, which would benefit imv with off boom sheeting and being rid of that turret and gubbins in the middle but I haven't gotten round to sorting a decent take off point for rear sheeting and tbh until today it hasn't really been that much of a problem, it has never gone into irons on the lake, it's flat water, it's the waves that screw you up on the sea, tacking into an uphill has a habit of sending you backwards..

Anyway it's an interesting subject, the Contender Boys have the problem a lot and they are way more experienced than I at single handing, so I'm not to phased by it.