SAILS – THE CONTROLS AND THEIR EFFECTS

0
805

Excerpts from an interview with highly accomplished Dinghy through to Maxi Yacht sailor and North Sails sailmaker Michael Coxon. Sails -The controls and Their effects.

What’s the most important sail control and how does that vary from class to class? Sails – the controls and their effects 

The most important sail control for any boat is the sheet tension. Where the sheet tension will tend to control the twist of the sail and the general drive of it, you can actually then use the subtler controls. Those controls include the outhaul and the Cunningham eye.

One very important thing depending on the boat is mast bend and how you achieve the mast bend.  If the mast bend is achieved through having a backstay, it makes the exercise fairly easy.

If it’s a non-backstay boat it will depend on things such as boom vang, again, sheet tension; it will depend on if you’ve got control of the mast at the deck. In other words, can you control the pre-bend in the mast whether through a lever or a chocking system?

Another big variable is rig tension. By increasing rig tension you’ll put more compression through your rig and increase, obviously the tension, but also the pre-bend in the rig.”

How often during a race do you adjust your settings and what indicators tip you off to make the changes? Sails – the controls and their effects.

Depending on how you’re going is how often you’re going to adjust it.

If you feel comfortable, you’ll tend to not play with things that much. You might make subtle adjustments for conditions. I find that if I feel that I’m off the pace, that’s when I’ll get more aggressive in what I do. 

My golden rule in one design, it doesn’t matter who the boat near you is, sail yourself, boat relative.

I don’t care if that boat is regarded as one of the front markers or one of the back markers. If he’s got an edge on you, use your eyes. See where his traveller is. See where his pre-bend is. How much forestay sag does he have?

The other rule I always have is that most races have two or three beats in them.

 So many times I’ll come back to the club afterwards, and someone will say, “Ah, I was really slow off the starting line.” And I’ll go, “Okay, so you were slow off the starting, so how were you up the second beat?” “Oh, really slow still up the second beat.” I’ll say to them, “Well, what did you change?” “I didn’t change anything.” I’m back here asking you now. I say, “Well, what you need to do is whether you change something for the better or the worse, if you made a change you would have learned.”

Once you are comfortable and well-positioned on the run as a team, you need to debrief the beat. If you do identify you had a problem, for instance, you might say, “I think we had a height problem. We were good through the water, but we had a height problem.”

If I was on my Etchells, the first thing I’d say, “Hey guys, we’ve got to look at whether we have to control the forestay sag a bit more, so perhaps we should straighten the mast up a little bit with the mast lever and that will instantly give me more forestay tension.” We also might want to take the rig tension up a little bit.

While you calmly think about that down the run before you get to the bottom mark and the action starts again, you’ve made some adjustments. You’re ready to round the bottom mark. You’re in a new boat and you restart again.

#sailingto win #sailtowin #sailing #yachtrace #sailboatrace #sailingcoach