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| 5. Thoughts on Sailing to Windward |
The first requisite to sailing to windward is having the proper instruments, and having them in optimum working order, e.g. the mast must be exactly right for your weight, and the sail must fit it exactly. You do not adjust the mast to fit the sail, but make the sail to fit the mast. Nowadays, your sailmaker can give you the best deflection data to get the mast right.
Most skippers basically sail their boats right to windward. As with anything else, it is fundamentals properly practised to the utmost degree which determines the placings - and the distances - between 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. And to lay bare the biggest ingredient between 1st place and also ran, it is the desire to practice these fundamentals to their utmost, because to do so means to win.
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When a skipper has the same mast/sail combination, boat, number of kilo in all-up weight as given factors, yet he noticeably has 'hot' days and 'cold' days, it is painfully obvious what the variable quantity is - desire. His desire may not be so great because he is ill, or he is hung over (clearly devoting a greater desire for something else than sailing the past 24 hours, or something in addition to it) which means there had been a mental conflict of interests if not a substitution of interests. Ab initio, the desire to win would most likely have accounted for the fact that his mast/sail combination in relation to his height/weight had been made as proper as humanly possible, to begin with.
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The basis concept of a sail properly set for windward excellence in Finns is: a uniformly shallow curvature with maximum depth point slightly aft of the bisected angle of the leech/luff, without distortion. Therefore, both the tightness of the leech and the luff/mast relationship have most to do with the uniformity, shallowness, and location of the sail's draft.
Since a stiffer mast requires a flatter sail, and a more limber mast requires a fuller sail, it can be generally said that the use of the traveller is more to accommodate the 'cup' of the leech, or lack of it, more than to accommodate the number of kilos of righting moment exerted by various sized skippers. Assuming one has the right mast / sail / height & weight combination the lighter skipper must carry his boom a little further out, and the heavier skipper must carry his a little further inboard. The starting point is where the black band on the boom intersects the rub rail. Never judge by the position of the traveller itself; only where the tip of the boom is riding is what counts.
It goes without saying that some booms are stiffer sideways than others. Accordingly, the mast should be raked just enough so that you do not have to actually make contact with the deck, but can have the boom 5 cm off the deck, when you are strapped in just short of the distort point of the sail. |
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One, you can always use this little extra sheeting when you need it (to win a luffing match, to squeeze around a mark) and secondly, sails do stretch out while racing. Thirdly, with the boom free and not jammed snug to the deck, the tip can give with the puffs and absorb some of the shock when going through heavy seas.
Once this is all taken care of, one can 'ooker' properly. Proper ookering is very simple -just enough tension to pull the last tiny wrinkles out of the sail on both the foot and luff and no more for the particular velocity. If, in a good blow there are serious wrinkles even after you have ookered all you can, it is a good time to consider the mast / sail / height & weight combination from the beginning. There are, however, two things to always remember: a good looking sail is not necessarily a fast one, and vice versa. Also, do not be concerned if your rig shows weaknesses in extreme conditions (under 1 or over 6 Beaufort); most races aren't sailed then.
A heavy skipper (90 kg and better seems to be the dividing line here) will never be able to compete against lighter skippers in Force 3, especially in a sloppy seaway. Elvstrom was the first to discover there was virtually nothing you could do about this rig-wise or sail-wise, and has long advocated two weight divisions to singlehanded sailing. |
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Sailing technique is divided into two schools: 1. 'Power' sailing & 2. Pointing. The heavy skippers usually are required to go the power school route, while the lighter skippers simply must rely on pointing. In the Finn a heavy skipper is seldom going to be able to point with a lightweight, and the lightweight can never hope to power with the heavy man. Yet, both can arrive at the weather mark at the same time remarkably often. The light skipper, of course, doesn't have to worry about being a little behind as he can make up fantastic distance off the wind. The heavy skipper must have sufficient yardage on the lightweight at the first mark in order to be within striking distance of him at the leeward mark as they start the final beat.
Whichever works best for a given skipper against a given competitor is the answer.
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And, it is perfectly true that some of the better skippers switch styles in the same race, to get past a certain boat, or because the wind velocity has changed. I'm a pointer for the most part, especially when the velocity is sufficient to enable it. But, most of the time I'm 50-50 on it and playing it by ear to suit the wind and waves combinations.
In flat water, no matter what the velocity, I have found most races are won by pointing. Since there are no waves to slow you down, you are so close to hull speed anyway driving off doesn't gain appreciably. On the other hand, in a good close chop or in slop or clean swells, you are constantly being slowed and accelerated, being kept far below hull speed, and the potential for additional relative boat speed is clearly existent, and the power sailors can win here with a great deal of physical effort.
You steer less in flat water, and a great deal in a sea. In fact, you should be steering each and every wave, trying to get the boat in a rhythm going over them. If you are doing this properly, keeping from being slowed by the wave as much as you can, and bearing off at the moment of 'shock' when the wave strikes and the helm comes over quicker and easier so that you can accelerate faster, you may find you can gain in both pointing and over-the-water speed. In heavy seas it is good not to cleat the main but to hold it. If a wave does slow you appreciably, it is going to jolt the flow of air right off the sail, and apparent wind goes right down to nothing. To get the boat going, you simply must let the sail off and then sheet in as speed picks up.
Keeping apparent wind up is the big secret, because when you have the boat 'in the groove' this is what is allowing you to feather up to windward, and keeping your stability, not to mention your real momentum.
When you see a wave is going to crash on you, it is good to let your sail out at the moment of impact. You would think this would never punch you through, but in fact this is what happens. Such a wave is going to stop you no matter what you do. By releasing the sheet at the impact, you have absorbed some of the shock on the rig and sail and avoided the wind being 'popped' out of it. Since you are stopped, your leech is already loose and ready to receive the flow of low-speed apparent wind much more quickly, hence you accelerate faster than a boat which went through the wave with everything strapped down all the time.
In smooth water it is obvious that you can ride gusts up higher than you can in a chop. There, most of your pointing gains are made in how you steer the waves, and because you are being jostled about so much the gust doesn't reallyaffect you with the force it could in smooth water. In short you head up only slightly for gusts in a chop, and not as quickly as in smooth water, because your 'stall-out' point is so much further away, and you need to get a full head of steam (wind) up to come up without killing way.
You are never going to be pointing well if you are hiking way out. One, because as your speed picks up the apparent wind gets above the optimum range, causes the sail to luff, hence you must bear off. Two, in order to keep the waves from hitting you, you have to heel the boat more, which takes it beyond its OAOH. It has been apparent to many that in many moderate-heavy winds, with typical waves accompanying, hiking may often hurt you as much as it might otherwise help you. However, if the seas are smooth or sufficiently spaced, so that you are closer to hull speed than the previous example, then hiking becomes important because the OAOH becomes more important. And when your hull speed is right up there, so is your apparent wind, and hiking is all that keeps you out of the stall-out zone. You can stall with half the sail luffing.
In the very highest velocities (above 6 Beaufort) I have found that it is wise to let the boom up a little to relieve the leech to an optimum point to avoid stalling out. You may think you aren't pointing as high, but if you are moving on the fleet don't think you ought to start heading higher or strapping it in. Most of the time, it will turn out the others are stalling with some frequency and duration. They are heading higher, but they are getting nowhere in these conditions. Don't let your traveller out all the way under any circumstances. It doesn't seem to do any good, yet it does allow your boom to catch the tips of waves, which leads to problems I won't go into here. Remember, your boom is going out a little when you let it up slightly, even though it never looks like it. Keep the boom out of the water.
Most of sailing to windward is by feel, and this feel is as much, if not more in the seat of the pants as in the hands. With fundamentals down pat, sailing a Finn is just like flying -the more hours you have in, the better you are. Practice may not make perfect - some people do have a gnawing, unquenchable desire to win, and others simply do not - but you can have a lot of fun trying. |
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