I blogged a few days ago about how to wind in those boat legnths and move up the results board in an OD fleet.
Now I stumble upon a totally fantastic North Sails YouTube OD video, which is an hour long and worth using for your own reference, or as the basis for a club winter training evening.
Why so good ? The main reason this is such an illustrative video is because the fleet of 31.7s are clearly at a developer level and so the mistakes they make are exaggerated enough to illustrate what went wrong or could have been avoided. This then is useful for either less experienced racers, or more experienced who maybe don't understand they still make these mistakes, even if they do to a lesser extent. They too require more finesse in reeling in some places. Also contributing of course there is a proff from North's giving a pretty excellent live commentary on these mistakes and tactics and of course on sail, rig and boat trim.
This is a tour-de-force of a training video for any racing boat, with a symmetrical rigged spinnaker, but more so because they are one design so boat speed and placings are immediate to see. From starts, to sheeting, crew position, hoists-drops, and especially for a really decisive place on the race course - the leeward mark- this is just gold dust glinting in front of your eyes!
Here are my own highlighted spots you should watch and what they illustrate:
15 minutes to 17 min in- Tacking
Here they consider tacking, and on this round hulled one design with a medium-large number 1 genoa, it need to be taken in smoothly such that the boat powers up to wind-eye and falls off giving the crew enough time to round the clew at the mast, trim on and move weight over the boat. I saw an IMX40 doing similar mistakes being crewed by some serious sailors: if you do it all too quickly you will shake the flow off the keel and if you don't get the genoa and main sheeted in and driving on the new tack, you will just start to go sideways before the flow gets re-attached to the foils on the new tack.
18 Min Lack of Weight on Rail
Coming into the weather mark there are two jobs to do- bow gets the pole up and someone goes down to ease the jib. Especially when there is a "trip mark" to sail to, keep your crew on the rail when they need to be up there (or in light airs, down there!)
Generally the video first half shows that many of the crews are maybe a bit cruisy-racey but later on there are some pretty darn text book performances. Hiking is a bit laksadasical for the first few, but gets better.
19 minutes Kicker Off Wind
There are few pointers through other footage from the off wind legs: the kicker on these boats is often too tight - the top of the triangle at the head of the sail is quite small but still has an effect because there is more wind up there! In OD this can be 0.1 of a knot and than means a boat length on a short course.
For the older One Designs like the Sigma 33, the Sonata and the Albin express, it is vital to have the kicker tuned right on the run because otherwise you will death roll in these older hull designs.
Illustrated again at 45'05", this time with too loose a kicker then as is deadly on Smegma 33s.
19 Minutes + Early Jib Hoist, Early Drop
8 boat legnths is a good rule of thumb he says for hoisting the jib and this is good advice if you do not need to gybe. There maybe jib halyard issues, as you see later in the video and you are then ahead of the game.
Early dropping: when you are inside boat you have a huge degree of controll over the guy behind who has to around you. Therefore you can drop early doors and position the boat as wide as you can within the rule of not sailing further than the mark. Many of the 31.7s in this vid end up hand braking round when they could have dropped, soaked out to the left and gone round "in a seaman like manner" , slack in, tight out.
20min 45 shows this point of coming in unnecessarily tight.
22 minutes we have a late start which more people should have spotted and taken advantage of. I find the start line is always 10 seconds further away than I think it is going to be and I need to sharpen up here, but also you can trust your watch and your bowman and ignore the fleet and go for a high speed start where ever you like on a non biased line.
27 Minutes Early Start General Recall - The opposite now, the fleet get a little too bullish from their starts 15 seconds late! This is a bit classic in bigger IRC boats actually because the flock begin to bunch up at the boat end, knowing they need to put the speed on these heavy displacement craft, they then move like a heard, getting pinned in to their lanes and the whole thing becomes a stampede, woo-betide anyone nearer the line who tries to luff them.
. The mass here start charging towards the line, and IIRC there are some last second chancers too so it is all messy, about 10 seconds early for the worst offender who then has no choice but to go over and hope for a GRC. Too much speed, you can hold your lane if you are lucky or luff more boats out at the boat end.
30-31 Minutes. Port Bias (Pin End) .- The race committee do this on purpose to see if the fleet notices and to make OCS clearer to call. Classic also for a last minute wind shift. Two or three boats take advantage.
21.50 minutes. Poor Use of Guy: The normal spinnaker needs to be exposed to the wind in these conditions asap. Pole back!!
33.30 Gybe Set, No Pole Required! A gybe set or maybe actually the Mumm 30 Set- Gybe here it is not clear, but the spinnie can be hoisted without the pole in up to 12 or 14 knts wind in most boats and flown nicely through the gybe or bow launched during / just after the gybe. Use the barber haulers ( tweakers in this vid, police men you call them what you will) on quite low to lessen bellowing of the kite and then once gybed or hoisted after the gybe, slack out on the new guy line and plonk the pole on asap.
Bow bag ? This is a classic for utlising the bow bag launch, which is also handy on a boat like these 31.7s or other genoa boats when you are going onto a run due to the tight foot of the foresail hindering a side launch: but NOT when you need to reach after the top mark. So in this case in the video with a trip mark you may be able to reach or you may want to go right so then it is a classic leeward bag. The bow bag onto a reach is very do-able but you run lots of risks in messing it up or the kite being completely overpowered when initially up.
33.50 Use of Tweaker / Barber Hauler for spinnaker.
You can over cook use of this line easily, but it helps stabilise the luffs when there is more wind or unstable wind.
During gybes in light to medium f 3 you can release these. In heavier you can get them down to the deck and on lazy sheet rigged set ups, you can take down the new guy to make it easier to grab in the gybe.
34.10 - vertical wrinkles in the Main on the run. " wee jobs" A fairly classic sign that the main has not been released for the run and is taught and not filling with wind- veticle lines. Not to be confused with horizontal which means the opposite of course! Slipping the halyard also opens the head of the sail so remember to re-adjust kicker.
We used to have a set motion for the sequence on the bear away and pre- harden up on several boats I sailed on:
Pole out and up, Slip kicker, slip outhaul, slipp cunningham (before rounding) : crack jib; hoist ; jib down; lett off backstay; let off main halyard; adjust kicker;
Jib Up; main halyard, cunningham preset before drop; outhaul after drop; some kicker, some backstay; drop; round up hardening in all sails; adjust kicker; fine adjust main sheet; fine adjust kicker, outhaul and backstay; final trim on genoa and main: all weight up!
36m 20s : Saving an outside Follower Position at the Leeward Mark:
Classically here the following boat goes wide now to give the inside boat room and to get herself in at speed, right on the mark : Wide in and tight out onto the beat. Boats should actually slow down to acheive this position and also they should consider filing in behind the boat infront if possible in order to protect position from more boats: but one on one, this is the way to go.
later we see that this creates both a "steeler" situation and a double loser : the latter being when a whole raft of boats charge in regardless forcing the polite boat even further out. CLOSE THE DOOR Gentlemen!! Shout No Water and steer to the bouy early, taking a dip if needs be.
37' 30". tidal start, push over. GRC. Whole bunch are caught out by the tide pushing them faster. I dublin there may be a 2.5 knt tide so that means you are maybe doing DOUBLE VMG in the prestart.
39 50 shows the restart and this is very typical with boats being more cautious now, and one sneaking in!
42' 30" Tacking at the Windward Mark: This has been addressed in both the 2009-13 and the 13 to 17 rules which I will have to look at again. The boat has place to tack in without interfering with the starboard boats who have overstood the mark, and once tacked he has rights. Really the same "imagine there was no mark" at this end, but I will need to see the adjustment to this rule in the 2013 rules.
46' 45" : Gybe Mark Spinnaker Bads: Gybe marks can be hectic: you must try and keep the kite flying on the bear away so that it is forward of the forestay, and the new guy must come on and go forward quickly.
The bowman should help square the guy back in the bearaway, keep hold of it then release it and the crew should sheet on the new sheet to keep the edge from curling while not dragging the clew too far back. The bow man should be on the new windward side with his back to the mast, and should try to get the pole on at a forward angle, not square because the boat will now reach up asap. The crew must check that the down haul is taken as the pole goes forward otherwise it will sky upwards. Once the pole is on the new guy and while going forward and being trained down, the bowman has to get it made on the mast and they can support it on their shoulder so as to guide it to the ring. On boats bigger than the 31.7 it can pay to have a second person on the pole at the mast, such that the bow man can face forward and they can make the ring or help if there are problems, most of all communicating the need for a bear away back to the helm.
47 ' 10" - from the above gybe mark situation- the boat behind has a roll over possibility because they are more competent at the gybe and have borne off earlier and have the pole on ready to go: the baot in front has collapsed their kite and will be focusing on fixing it, not being rolled over!!!
48 45: more sheet- guy mess up.
51 30 How not to do a leeward mark, right into dirty air, should maybe tack asap...while....
52 30: Absolute classic Steel at the leeward mark!!! This is brilliant and shows the point above- the lead boat has established overlap but is nervous about going wide and coming in on the mark, so tries too sharp an angle in, and the handbreak goes wrong- the flow does not attach to the foils as the boat stalls in the water and the lane out is almost 10 m low . The following boat, takes its time and goes nice and wide to then reach in and harden up onto a lane higher than the lead boat, being able then to roll him : it gets a bit close but the lead boat pinches up and dies anyway. The Overtaking boat could have done a quick "shimmy shammy" luff as we say in Glasgow, and pinched an even higher lane once round the mark, securing windward separation only at the cost of being a little back, but they are ahead no matter what, a point lost on many beginners! They are up wind and nearer the mark the moment they reach the leeward mark and they are moving at enough speed to have attached flow over the foils and momentum to harden up.
at 5340 a boat sails too far round trying to protect their wind and losing places, while at 55 a boat comes in too soon IIRC in trying to steel the higher lane out of the leeward mark, and just ploughs into bad air on transoms!
5650 Forestay Too Slack and Needing Correction is an interesting somewhat advanced bit of rig trimming: here the wind has built through the day, which could have been expected and probably both the forestay length AND the shrouds are too slack for the new pressure. You can very graphically see the sag in the forestay and the jib being overpowered and worse, unable to point.
This is an exaggeration of my preferred "middle setting for the day" in sportsboats. Here this luff can be partly corrected by back stay as the rig is nearly 7/8ths and also using more main sheet tensiion will help, with the car going all the way back as the No 1 is probably too much now anyway. Just as in a sports boat.
If there is a lot of wind forecast then I prefer to preset the standing rig on hard: you can squeeze a little more fullness out the sails on the sheets and controls but if it blows up you will not be able to get the tension done on the rig, even between races sometimes. I also like to strip down to No.2 but in OD fleets this is a very neglected sail, boats holding No 1 heavy at all costs until number 3 is in order. This is a function of the wind partly - above 18 - 20 knts average in the UK and other temperate waters, it seems the gusts are peaking higher so you come into no 3 range and it makes sailing easier. However the No 2 would have bought you places by stopping the boat going sideways in the 20 22knot gusts you hit on the no 1, and will then survive being feathered in 25-27 knt peak gusts. In this video a number 2 may be a good idea, but the lulls may be low and long enough that you will hurt too much. So try to take it in on the running rigging.
To get forestay tension right, refer to the sailmakers trimming guide, on forestay legnth and tension for your sails and then try it out. (Better yet. Get them to come on baord) On any cruising boat like this, you need forestay sag to help power up the boat in light to medium (2 to 9 knts) wind and if you are heavily laden or racing a good OD class this is important to have tunable to get that speed on right when you need it- at all the points at which you accelerate onto the wind- starts, tacks and hardening up past the leeward mark .
Remember to adjust also then the shrouds: a shorter headstay with the same cap tension on swept back spreaders, will bend the mast more, so you can take this out on the lower (Diag 1s) or slacken off the Caps a little if the bend makes the mainsail too flat. On straight spreaders like a Sonata, too short a head stay may cause the mast to invert and collapse!
Conversely if it is the main sail which is too full and you have tuned for flattening that, then you may need to do the reverse and slacken the forestay.
Final point- If the boat has been really badly set up from before, then you may need to also adjust or reconstruct the purchases on the back stay too in order to have the correct range for it.
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