Sailing in Windshifts
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Dinghy classes
Forum Name: Technique
Forum Discription: 'How to' section for dinghy questions and answers
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8425
Printed Date: 26 Jun 25 at 1:33pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Sailing in Windshifts
Posted By: G.R.F.
Subject: Sailing in Windshifts
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 11:20am
|
So now, what's everyones thinking here then? Don't tell me sailing in wind shifts is also really quite simple like our tidal sailing coaches. (shifting wind is the same as shifting tide, get it right and you're king, get it wrong and you'll forever be at the back of the fleet.)
So, lets start with something I'm struggling to get to grips with, may as well learn myself whilst we debate, I'm sailing with a new crew, who insists on constantly calling out what the tel -tales are telling him. Personally I'm a seat of the pants sailor I tend to use the 'feel' through the tiller arm and obviously what my eyes and ears tell me, I tried tel-tales years ago on a sailboard and they were as meaningless to me then as they are now.
So I'm going to assume y'all do know when and when not to tack on headers and stuff a bit higher on lifts (Although my experience tells me loads actually don't and are unaware of them) but with the lack of common savvy that has been exhibited on the tide thread, I'm beginning to wonder just how much dumbing down has occurred over the years and this is one area that affects all of us.
Initially my question is how do you all tell wether you're being lifted or headed?
-------------
https://www.ease-distribution.com/" rel="nofollow - https://www.ease-distribution.com/
|
Replies:
Posted By: alstorer
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 12:54pm
tell tales for one (jib ones especially) and keeping any eye on where the boat's pointed. We don't have a compass, though class rules allow the Tacktick ones. Risk of stalling out (we're nnowhere near 100% on tacks) and it not being the fastest tacking boat ever anyway means that we try to avoid tacking on small, short lived headers, especially if we can see another change in the wind shortly in front and/ore boats nearby have sailed out the header and are now being lifted.
-------------
-_
Al
|
Posted By: hollandsd
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 1:20pm
| Originally posted by G.R.F. Personally I'm a seat of the pants sailor I tend to use the 'feel' through the tiller arm and obviously what my eyes arse and ears cheeks tell me,
[/QUOTE
Grumpf you do make me worry some times, i know your getting all adventurous in your old age but the tiller is not for sitting on. 
On a slightly more serious note, i prefer to feel for the wind than look at tell tales but there are occasions where in very light conditions where the occasional glance is helpful.
Dan
-------------
Laser 184084
Tasar 3501
RS600 698
RS600 782
|
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 3:13pm
The great Eric Twiname had it right - eyes fixed like a hawk on jib telltales if you have a jib, they will tell you far sooner than anything else whether you've been headed or lifted. Then use your position on the course to decide whether to tack on the header. Inland, I'd say tack the vast majority of the time. On the sea, I'm generally lost, anyway...
In a single sailed boat, eyes like a hawk on the telltales on the main, but this is harder (for me, anyway) as the jib intersects with where you are looking for gusts and the like upwind, too, whereas the main involves more compromises in where you are looking at any one time.
-------------
Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
|
Posted By: Presuming Ed
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 7:45pm
|
Of course, the real skill isn't just sailing on the lifted tack - it's fleet management. Putting yourself on the left side of the fleet before a left shift comes in, the getting across to the right of the fleet for a righty.
|
Posted By: rb_stretch
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 8:15pm
Personally I can't do shifts properly unless I have a compass. Of course big ones I can spot sans compass, but I need a compass to know where I'm in the cycle (for cyclical shifts of course), especially after rounding the downward mark.
For me tell tales are for keeping optimum sail trim.
|
Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 8:25pm
Originally posted by Presuming Ed
Of course, the real skill isn't just sailing on the lifted tack - it's fleet management. Putting yourself on the left side of the fleet before a left shift comes in, the getting across to the right of the fleet for a righty. |
You're going to feel I'm picking on you, but that's open water thinking again, like your tide views.
Do what you've just suggested risks getting it massively wrong, you could get that lift, but then so, simultaneously could the boats on the right, especially somewhere like say Axebridge res when the wind in the north, or any south coast offshore situation.
Better solution is to play shifts middle left or middle right sailing for the mark, never over extend, not unless your absolutely certain, or need to visit the doctor and it's the last race.
-------------
https://www.corekite.co.uk/snow-accessories-11-c.asp" rel="nofollow - Snow Equipment Deals https://www.corekite.co.uk" rel="nofollow - New Core Kite website
|
Posted By: Mister Nick
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 8:29pm
|
Watching the jib tell tales helps a hell of a lot, especially when the wind is light. It's pretty easy to sail too low or pinch if you don't, personally I find it very useful to keep an eye on them. You should tack on big headers that stick around for a significant amount of time, carry on going for a few boat lengths and if there is still no sign of you getting lifted back up then you should tack. No point tacking on headers straight away because usually the breeze will come back round. Sailing in shifty conditions isn't not difficult to do, it just takes a lot of concentration and practice. Round Mersea Island Race this year is a good example - we were getting GIGANTIC shifts just after the strood and there was next to no breeze. We clawed our way up through two 29ers, and a laser 4000 just by being hot on the shifts and making sure the jib tell tales were flying well constantly. Shame we got stuck in a windless hole when we put the kite up and let them get away... >_<
|
Posted By: alstorer
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 9:21pm
As far as I can tell, unless you've spent ages figuring out the right position for them, jib tell tales are much more responsive to shifts than main sail ones (even on single-sail boats)- this might be part of why they weren't much use for you on your windsurfer. Also, on a two man boat you can afford to spend a bit more time looking at them, driving to them- but you do need to figure out who's responsibility it is to watch them. I guess (I've never used one properly) that with the self-tacker you pretty much set and forget upwind?
-------------
-_
Al
|
Posted By: NickA
Date Posted: 19 Oct 11 at 9:37pm
|
Jib tell tales definitely jib tell tales. Choose a suitable jib sheeting angle then steer to the tell tales - tack when the compass or tactik tells you that steering to the tell tales is taking you the wrong way.
Interesting hint taught me this weekend is to sail with more twist in the sails when it's really shifty; that way part of the sail is always sheeted correctly to the wappy wind.
But I was thinking the other day, when sailing without a jib on and totally lost wrt the wind: what do MPS and RS6/700 sailors do? I don't see them with main luff tell tales like what laser sailors use, certainly not using wind hawks and the like, but they still hit the angles right.
-------------
Javelin 558
Contender 2574
|
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 20 Oct 11 at 9:18am
Is anybody else reading this thread down the far right hand side of the screen?
Page 1 was, at least...
-------------
Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
|
Posted By: Roger
Date Posted: 20 Oct 11 at 9:25am
Originally posted by Rupert
Is anybody else reading this thread down the far right hand side of the screen?
Page 1 was, at least... |
Yep, just the same for me, all text in a narrow column down the right side??? On page one only...
|
Posted By: Oatsandbeans
Date Posted: 20 Oct 11 at 10:17am
|
A technique that I use when it gets really light when sailing to windward, and I can't tell if the sails are properly set ( tell tales wet or just limp) is to ease the jib off until it luffs. It is easy to detect when it luffs and it will then tell you how far off the correct course you are. Then heel the boat a boat to leeward and let it slowly come up to the correct course as you squeeze both sails in. This is a winner as no rudder is used as thus speed is retained in conditions when speed is critical ( I also ease the main out as soon as I can see the jib needs easing). This technique may seem obvious, but most people achieve the same by steering the boat around, to check the set of the sails, which is slow as in most cases the sails are stalled out anyway and boat speed has dropped.
|
Posted By: G.R.F.
Date Posted: 20 Oct 11 at 10:46am
Interesting technique there OaB, I tend to heel the boat, but still 'feel' the tiller, I'd never really attempted to sail a boat using just the jib and main until last weekend when the rudder fell off and we were taking the buoys out to lay a course, the crew had attempted to 'have a go' see why the rudder had come of (the lower pintle was bent leaving the beach) but I can see now how that would work.
-------------
https://www.ease-distribution.com/" rel="nofollow - https://www.ease-distribution.com/
|
Posted By: Oatsandbeans
Date Posted: 20 Oct 11 at 11:26am
|
I really try to use as little rudder as I can. Especially in the light as it just slows you down. Many sailors like feel from the rudder and thus sail the boat too heeled in the light, this means that the boat will want to head up into the wind and the rudder will be used to correct this. This is just wasting energy that should be used to make the boat go faster through the water. I only heel the boat when it is really light, as soon as I get enough wind for the tell tales to flow I flatten if off. I am paranoid about not using the rudder. I think it is a bit like driving a car and not using the brakes. If your car has one of those MPG read outs you can really get the MPG numbers up by not braking. This is how I feel when I sail in the light without using the rudder. Everytime that I can do a manouver with minimal rudder I know that I have gained over the others that are wanging the helm back and forward. Give it a try!
|
Posted By: G.R.F.
Date Posted: 20 Oct 11 at 10:30pm
I shall, how to you wrestle control of the jib away from the bloody crew?
-------------
https://www.ease-distribution.com/" rel="nofollow - https://www.ease-distribution.com/
|
Posted By: bustinben
Date Posted: 21 Oct 11 at 10:28am
|
In anything over 8 knots most good laser sailors are looking at the sea ahead and steering completely by feel anyway, the tell tales are just there for the reaches
I'm a compass user myself, I tend to get lost without it, but when the sea is up it's not very accurate in a laser because your boat is pointing at totally different angles depending on where you are on the wave. Usually I notice that I've had to bear away a bit, check the compass, if it looks like it's changed a bit look at the competition over my shoulder. Can I cross them? If yes, it's a header, and then it's down the strategy flowchart to decide whether or not to tack on it.
Problem with using just the tell tales is that 1. You'll miss a wind bend 2. You'll miss a slow shift 3. It ignores the fact that a boat 10 boatlengths to inside of you might be in the most godalmighty lift and gust and you should really get over there regardless of what your wind is doing!
|
Posted By: alstorer
Date Posted: 21 Oct 11 at 10:31am
That's why you should be using tell tales along with everything else. Steer to the tell tales, notice the shift by how much you're steering to keep them happy.
-------------
-_
Al
|
Posted By: GybeFunny
Date Posted: 21 Oct 11 at 4:57pm
|
I grew up sailing on a lake, I always use the tell tales, I am totally lost when it is raining and they are stuck to the jib. I dont use a compass. As long as you always keep the telltales streaming you can tell if you have been lifted by looking at a transit on the shore. On a lake I have a good idea if the next gust I see on the water will head or lift me, it is because a gust not only travels downwind but it also fans out a bit so you can make use of the different wind direction along the edge of gusts. This tactic of sailing round the gusts is particularly useful in an asymetric in light winds.
|
Posted By: NickA
Date Posted: 21 Oct 11 at 6:56pm
|
kind of hard to watch transits if you're out on the wire - they won't stay still.
But yes feeling for the boat starting to heel to windward, sheet out head up, sheet in again; heeling to leeward, bear off. Easy to mistake lulls and gusts for shifts tho.
-------------
Javelin 558
Contender 2574
|
|
Print Page | Close Window
Bulletin Board Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com
Copyright ©2001-2010 Web Wiz - http://www.webwizguide.com
|
|