Types of course

This just goes to reinforce what a thankless task RO can be   and I've just volunteered for an extra Wednesday night duty in July (my first as RO at L&LSC).

Originally posted by Sam.Spoons This just goes to reinforce what a thankless task RO can be   and I've just volunteered for an extra Wednesday night duty in July (my first as RO at L&LSC). Whatever you do you'll leave somebody dissatisfied, W/L course? The assy's will be delighted but the Solos and Enterprises will be baying for blood, all beats and reaches you'll have a posse of 400's waiting behind the boat shed for you........ You just can't win.......

Originally posted by gbr22114 Obviously I need to pay more attention to how asymmetrics perform on different legs (aside from constantly taking my wind) - I don't understand why they wouldn't do reaching well.

Its complicated between different classes, but very high performance boats (asymmettric or otherwise) only sail at one downwind angle in any given wind strength, which gives them both the best vmg and greatest speed thro' the water. So if the reach is tighter than the magic angle then they'll either have to go high and hoist late, or else struggle to make the mark (usually very slow). If on the other hand its broader than the magic angle then they'll have to gybe down to the mark just as if it were a run. But on a run they are hitting max speed and can pick their moment to gybe etc, whilst the slower boats are stuck bobbling down on the slowest point of sailing.

When you get to slower asymmettrics esp in light winds, where max vmg and max speed do not coincide, then its a bit more complicated.

There's nothing different about the physics between pole kite and asymmetric kite boats, its just that most pole kite rigs are so inefficient with short poles and small balloon shaped sails that they don't really have a magic angle to the extent something like a 49er does.

Get your RO to look at these