Hi,

I am looking for either a temporary 49er crew or possibly permenant if it goes well and you want to continue.

No 49er experience needed, but you do need to have trapeze experience, asymetric experience etc. It would also help if you have sailed some kind of skiff but not compulsory.

I sail out of Rutland SC, I will be free for the next 3 weeks pretty much if you want to try it out.

Post here if your interested.

Thanks

Chris

Beware! there are lots of dreamers on here who claim to know more than they do.

About their experience?

Thanks, I will bear that in mind.

Its surprisingly not actually that hard work with the kite sheet even in 18knots+ Specially if you wear builders gloves. What kind of experience do you have?

i would give it a go. but im about 150miles away. so not very viable.

just out of curiosity, how much harder than 29ers are they? just asking as i can see myself in a musto or 49er eventually and can sail the 29er around a course unless its breezy.

Its not that much different, the deck layout is extremely similar and actually easier as its not as cluttered, which is a big thing for me, don't know about you! I get confused between ropes easily .

It sails quite differently though, the 29er is a pain to sail in light breezes, the 49er is but no where near as much (more hull on the water I guess).

Heavy winds you get tired pretty quickly with the 49er, and you have to have lots of practice to sail in breeze.

It just takes a bit of getting used to but sailing a 29er does have similarities to sailing the 49er so its a good bonus been able to sail the 29er first (but not nessecary!) I only sailed the 29er a couple of times before, and apart from that I was on other single wire boats and one trip out on an rs600 in lightish wind.

Helming on the wire is actually easier than you think, its what put me off a bit but once you get used to where your putting your hands its actually easy, your out there nothing to catch on or anything and its actually quite relaxed . What wind have you sailed the 29er in?

iv sailed in in winds up to a f3 with some f4.

in the 3we were good when we could understand each other (took a while as he was german and it was like 'lets gybe, we are going to hit an rs500, gybe for FCUKs sake gybe'

but once we got the basic communication sorted we were ok. a few capsizes but we only sailed together about 7or 8 times. in the f4 we were reasonably quick but couldnt get our teamwork sorted well enough. about 1 in 3 gybes we swam but we were fine in the tacks. (i think it was down to not sailing much together).

one thing i would hate as a helm is to try and sheet in a lot whilst on the wire. you cant really cross your body can you?

Thats a bit annoying, wrote great big post and then the internet went wierd when I clicked.. . it was mostly ramble anyway... So a breifer summary...

Communication is pretty important on any boat specially in tippy boats like the 29er or 49er when you need to constantly know what each other are doing so your not both for instance on the wing before the boat has powered up (although you have to be pretty hasty to get out as it does.) But you get used to things like that, and with a 49er you need a crew that is permanent really (which I am having trouble with ) as you start to learn each others ways and the 49er is by no means easy to crew so its hard to just jump on a 49er from another boat and win all the races..

The 29er has a greater tendancy to "dig" at the bow (as i like to call it) with the genneker up where as the 49er genneker actually lifts the bow more.  The footstraps on a 49er may make you think you need them to not pitch it, which is why you need them but only in high winds and on choppy water (which it isn't inland) they are really for balance I guess. Bear aways you sometimes need them too.

For a 29er and 49er the crew should have the main when the genneker isn't out as it is a lot easier for the crew to play it, and the helm to play the jib. Downwind with the genneker flying the helm takes the main, which you just keep at half way anyway as it doesn't make much difference once the genneker is up.

And Yes you do need to play a jib, the 49er jib is pretty powerful in itself and in high winds playing it with the main, as opposed to sheeting the main out more is a lot quicker and less work for both of you. Quite odd because a lot of boats you just leave the jib to it because it hasn't really got the power in it to make a huge difference .

i guess tacking would take a lot of teamwork because you've not only got to get out on the wire but also across the wings. but do it all as the power comes on.

as for tippy??? 29ers feel like a house after the 300.

when i was crewing i always took the main upwind but each tack i handed it back to the helm and went between mast and jib to keep weight foreward. would then grab it back when i was going out on the wire again.

do you have a joined jib and main sheets or not? one 29er i sailed did and it was easy for the helm to take the end to ajust jib whilst bearing off etc while i was still on the wire. the other doesnt and i dont like it as much. but he keeps the tail for it at the back.

I found the 29er pretty tippy in light winds. I have never sailed a 300. Either way the 49er is less tippy in light winds . It powers up quicly in high winds which makes it feel pretty tippy but is fine once your on the wire off the wing playing the main, quite easy to keep flat. You set the power up with shround tension (3 sets of shrouds) and the top set of shrouds spills some of the gusts if you set them quite loose.

In the 49er you only go infront of the mast in light winds and the helm just stays reasonably forward. If the crew was to go infront of mast in over 10 knots then it would be a bit dodgey I think.. Although never tried. It powers up quickly so at least one needs to be on the edge of the wing as it does and the other not far behind (although behind otherwise you take a dunk the wrong way). So the crew keeps the main during the tacks (normally). Its a lot easier that way as the helm can concentrate on what he is doing with the tiller and hooking on wire to wire (then retrieving jib sheet from the end of the main) so guess that answers that question too . That way you can't loose either easily, and if helm looses jib gets it off crew, if crew looses main then gets it off helm.

EDIT

Sorry took me ages to write hat so missed the other posts. Yea probably slightly bigger if not the same as the 5k. tried googling it but its always main + jib.

As for the main downwind, yes you don't want it any further out than half way, I try to keep it pointing roughly to the middle of the wing (back middle). I think your irg only does that in high winds . At least I hope. Like I said earlier, the rig won't take much more than 28 knots. But at that wind speed you must get knackered quickly anyway.

Another edit

Had a proper look at that photo.. He has his right out which certainly isn't a good idea (right out as it won't go further because of shrouds. (I have a knot in my sheet stops it going further than about 2 inches from shrouds). People snap their booms if they don't put that knot in .

one thing i dont understand. if you set the rig up with shrouds, presumably your raking back to allow the top of the sail to twist off. if so when you use kicker to bend the mast doesnt that load up the leech of the sail again?

you obviously wouldnt pass the main to the helm if he had to get on a wire aswell, but in the 29er it seemed to work nicely

I don't really understand it either, Just know it works . Good explanation on Higher and Faster but I can never follow it without getting side tracked. Bits I do know...

The caps (top set of shrouds) bend the top of the mast back. This will be changed quite dramatically with the new rig which is flat topped as with a flat top the bend is not needed.

The Shrouds (middle set) adjust the depth of the middle of the sail for more or less power, same with the lowers.

Quite a good explanation of it all by Chris Draper..

http://teamdraperandhiscocks.com/TipsandAdvice/PowerSequence/tabid/109/Default.aspx - http://teamdraperandhiscocks.com/TipsandAdvice/PowerSequence /tabid/109/Default.aspx

As he calls it the power sequence. As you can see when you need Cunningham is when it is getting towards overpowered and the rig needs racking back.

Yea helm takes the main if needed, and quite often do if the crew goes in to do somethign with controls or sort something out. You can do it either way crew first or helm first and we tend to have helm out first has I have the tiller that gets in the way .

That website doesn't seem used much by the lack of anything in the forum.. Anyone know anywhere else I could post something? Getting frustrating now

Thanks anyway though Ryan, posted it there anyway to see what happens.

Not had anyone interested from the 49er class website after quite a while, they all seem to sail somewhere on the south Coast. Just sending dave hall an email now.

I'm surprised how few 49ers there are at Rutland, its pretty perfect for skiff sailing. Only me and The wilce brothers but since Josh is at Swansea Uni now they don't really sail there much anymore.

Thanks

Yea which I meant end up having to do, but it was worth a shot .

Its a great MPS fleet at rutland yes but I prefer sailing with someone and I am a bit of a speed junky so if I do go for a single handed boat its probably a foiling moth, but then again I don't think I could stand going back to hiking.. So a MPS is probably my only other option?

Anyway would get boring if the MPS was the only skiff class there.. Would be better to have some 49ers and other skiffs too for a broader range of boat, more fun that way too because you can all borrow each others boats  Get the best of all of them.

I am planning on competing at a high level once I get into it, and I will not just switch to a musto because I had crew problems at the start, that would be stupid, specially as I have put effort into it to the point I don't get wet anymore .

If you compete towards the top, the majority of it can be payed off by sponsors, if thats where you should be realistically competing anyway.

For now I will stick it out, because once I have a crew it won't be a problem, but yes maybe in the future I may end up switching to something singlehanded, but right now, I want ot be sailing a 2 handed boat.

I think the quality of racing would still be very high, but the standard at the top would be higher in the 49er fleet. You can still have good racing at any standard because you race against people at your level in the fleet. If you want to win (I'm not that bothered, I sail for the fun factor! But winning is nice ), then I would think that 49er fleet was a bad idea because you would just get eaten by the Olympic squad?

That is true, and is really quite annoying that they get to train all week and get payed to . While us lot are stuck at work (well school for me but for most work).

congratulations, i take it you will be going to the tiger trophy now then?

Go for it

My crew is going to be on his 3rd time 29er sail

With no assy/trap experience beforehand!

We'll be fine

I hope

Yea but when you loose control of a 49er it would prbalby take out 3 times as many boats considering its speed width and sail area if it capsizes . Chcnaces are we will if he comes on as much as he did today. He has just got back from the 29er worlds in Aus but is moving to 49er as he is bit too big now.

Its a big leap from a 29er to a 49er and to be honest my helming is not quite perfected yet, still need more confidence.

It was cold today, had plenty underneath my drysuit but once the head went under I had serious brain freeze!

Urgh, that was shortlived, he has just got a job in Scotland... Still looking for crew then

Maybe I should just move ot a musto...