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Spotting Windshifts.
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fab100 View Drop Down
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Posts: 1005 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fab100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Spotting Windshifts.
    Posted: 04 Feb 15 at 2:06pm
Originally posted by Rupert

Both aiming at sailors, surely, and ones who are wanting to improve, whether the improvement is from back of fleet to middle, or middle to nearer the front. Big overlap, I'd say. Any book that can get you looking at things in a slightly different way is good, whatever the "level" it is aimed at.

Agreed. I'm looking forward to it.

I stopped reading other peoples' sailing books for a fair while, not wanting to even sub-consciously plagiarise anyone, but too busy on other things to contemplate a second edition or follow up effort, so the block is now removed.
Great book for Club Sailors here
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 15 at 2:56pm
One of the things that budding authors are advised to do is read, read, read. 
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MattK View Drop Down
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Posts: 221 		Post Options Post Options   Quote MattK Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 15 at 7:07pm
Originally posted by iGRF

So, I don't need to know how, I'm OK with it, but I'd like to know how you tell others how to do it.

Something like this
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 15 at 7:33pm
Spot On Matt, it's why we windsurfers use the force, not burgees..
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sargesail View Drop Down
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Posts: 1459 		Post Options Post Options   Quote sargesail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Feb 15 at 9:44pm
Early in my time with my now wife and crew I sat her down on a Cornish headland in gusty shifty conditions and we watched what happened on the water and how it affected the breeze we felt.  We had something to help us see the wind direction, as well as feeling it.  A scarf I think, it being February.  It was time well spent and she was able to learn to spot gusts and, with slightly less certainty, shifts.

Separating the apparent wind header / pressure lift, from the gradient header/lift, is altogether more difficult, and takes experience.

But you can gain so much from it.  I recall a race in very heavy 55 foot yachts in which the boat to weather and abeam gradually ended up to leeward and behind, in on-off breeze conditions at night.  Why?  Because she bore away whenever the breeze shut off and she was headed, while we just eased the genoa to stop it backing too much and left the helm middled.  Once our speed dropped to the right one for our close-hauled course in he new breeze then we found that we were miraculously back on course.  It was an extreme but clear example.
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Feb 15 at 10:20pm
Totally failed to pick up on a virtually no wind shift today and lost a good 100 yards on the boats in front, which sadly included rupertson, who did the 100 yards while I did 10. Last I saw of him...
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Woodbotherer View Drop Down
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Posts: 192 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Woodbotherer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Feb 15 at 9:20am
It was borderline breezy yesterday so I ended up using the small sail, it's another ghastly full batten thing, set half up half down the mast, doesn't transition and fill at all, terrible no feel to it, I'd started off well enough with a port end half assed flyer so I was in the mix at the front for quite a while, but it's lack of sensitivity and terrible re attachment after the tack meant I got a couple really wrong and slipped back down the pack.

Then the knot on the mainsheet had come undone and one sudden gusty lift at the gybe saw the boom gybe almost windsurf style right round the front and I very nearly swam. I probably ended up last on corrected.

Full battens make spotting shifts ten times more difficult for me.


Edited by Woodbotherer - 09 Feb 15 at 9:21am
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Posts: 2538 		Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Feb 15 at 10:11am
I was out staurday doing a few laps on my own around some cans.... that D-Zero just hunts out lifts upwind, my light wind tacking technique was also improving, keeping weight right up by the kicker and tacking facing backwards.  

I was also directly sheeting off the boom (didn't need the ratchet in that breeze), this helped keep the tiller and ropes de-cluttered and will be moving to off the boom sheeting permanently when my own boat shows up... probably using one of those little auto ratchets I had on my MPS kite sheets, and a longer tiller extension.  
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Woodbotherer View Drop Down
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Posts: 192 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Woodbotherer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Feb 15 at 10:24am
Quite how you've managed to blag one of those fine craft, is beyond me, shouldn't you now be doing your bit to improve the handicap by entering some events and starting in the third rank in light conditions? Wink
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Steve411 View Drop Down
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Posts: 705 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Steve411 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Feb 15 at 11:35am
Originally posted by turnturtle

I was out staurday doing a few laps on my own around some cans.... that D-Zero just hunts out lifts upwind, my light wind tacking technique was also improving, keeping weight right up by the kicker and tacking facing backwards.  

I was also directly sheeting off the boom (didn't need the ratchet in that breeze), this helped keep the tiller and ropes de-cluttered and will be moving to off the boom sheeting permanently when my own boat shows up... probably using one of those little auto ratchets I had on my MPS kite sheets, and a longer tiller extension.  

Come on James, you don't need a ratchet at all - it just slows down the gust response.
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