Star Sailors League

Originally posted by KazRob I've certainly raced one under PY (about 10 years ago) with the crew on the foredeck downwind but never (knowingly) rocking from side to side. TBH it's such a big boat it's a bit daunting sailing around responsibly with smaller boats as everything's so out of scale and different compared to them. It would be really easy to cause carnage with a 10' long jib stick and the 14.5' long boom, never mind tacking angles that defy logic

Curious what the tacking angles are?

I'm not sure on exact numbers for tacking angles but my usual trick of tacking when I can just see the mark when looking as far round behind my rear shoulder when hiking always ended up in being waaay over the layline in the Star. I learned to judge it looking over my forward shoulder and teh crew's head as he hiked but it did vary depending in breeze so never measured it. Prob 75-80deg if I had to guess tho

Rupert - I'm not sure as I think it might just be a SSL rule but I understand there is a proposal to include it in the Star championship rules above a certain windspeed. The crew has always been allowed on the foredeck as far as I know but around 15 years ago it was found to be a lot faster downwind as long as you could keep the boat upright (they have been know to capsize from a death roll) and the crew on the boat (it can be a bit slippy up there). Standing up tho allows the crew to spot the wind better as well

Thing is, because of the affects of apparent wind, to point really high a boat must be both very low drag with a very efficient rig, but also rather slow for its size. A speed limited keelboat is always going to be favourite.

Apart from Mozzy's answer, which is spot on, I'd think that boats like the Metre classes would rank very high on pointing ability. The old AC monohull also.