Reaching in a single hander

Originally posted by laser193713 I would say the best tip I ever had was to do with kicker tension. It seems to be the driving factor when it comes to boat speed in single handers. Experiment with it but the sweet spot always seems to be that point where the leech can't quite decide whether it wants to be open or closed. Particularly noticeable on a run too, ease the kicker until the leech falls forwards, then pull it on a touch and it will start moving around a lot by its own accord. This always seems to work for me, no matter what class. It's particularly noticeable in boats with no kite, but works in all boats.

That seems entirely logical, Contender folk in our changing rooms speak of sailing the boat from the kicker in mid range winds.

I often wonder why, since it is so important and I now understand why it is so, but why has nobody come up with a calibrated kicker system?

Originally posted by iGRF Originally posted by laser193713 I would say the best tip I ever had was to do with kicker tension. It seems to be the driving factor when it comes to boat speed in single handers. Experiment with it but the sweet spot always seems to be that point where the leech can't quite decide whether it wants to be open or closed. Particularly noticeable on a run too, ease the kicker until the leech falls forwards, then pull it on a touch and it will start moving around a lot by its own accord. This always seems to work for me, no matter what class. It's particularly noticeable in boats with no kite, but works in all boats. That seems entirely logical, Contender folk in our changing rooms speak of sailing the boat from the kicker in mid range winds. I often wonder why, since it is so important and I now understand why it is so, but why has nobody come up with a calibrated kicker system?

Leech streamers are your calibration, just play with the kicker until the top one just starts to stall.  The kicker tends to affect the sail shape & twist more than any other control when reaching.  Leech streamers will give you an idea of what the flow of air off the sail is doing (equally as important, or possibly more so than what's happening at the front).  My simple analogy is that you want to deflect the wind as much from it's original path as possible for max power.  You do this by adding as much curve to the sail as possible whilst still having the flow stick to it.  The leech streamers will let you know when you are starting to get flow separation (or vortices/stalling depending upon your language of choice).  Max power is at the start of flow separation.

Well, if you want to be clever, where legal, just use a loadcell. Only £1200. Cheap at twice the price. 

Edited by Presuming Ed - 27 Jan 17 at 3:01pm

Calibration (I just tend to use the relationship between blocks in a system) is a fairly crude measure when wind speed and direction are totally variable. I'll adjust the kicker on a reach till I can feel the difference it is making. The wind drops or moves aft, you can feel the sail suffocating till you ease the kicker. Too much, you can see the boom rising and sense the loss of power. Not the sweet spot, and the boat feels alive, the opposition left floundering. Not something you can use a ruler for, but you can teach people how to sense all this, provided they have the patience and concentration. And time in the boat.

Change classes, and you have to spend time figuring out what fast feels like, but the basics are still the same, usually.