Then I went back to racing and got into the new school, by pure luck and coincidence, sailing with some great sailors like Dave Cummaford and team, and being taught by coaches like Brian Mathews from Ireland.
Also then there was my own reading and I found I could apply knowledge from books over the winter nights, into the four dimensional sport come spring again. Then there came the internet and eventually some great threads on sailing anarchy.com and yachtsandyachting.co.uk. Also I sailed dinghies and small keel boats on-the-side of yacht racing, as helm most often, and that informed my helming and crewing in the main stream.
Later on I started to learn from a couple of new perspectives. Firstly by teaching, which forces you to think through and communicate everything and you can analyse the rough edged mistakes beginners make in light of your own..... Secondly then I learned from a couple of "idiot savants"- really talented practical sailors who had really no idea of finesse or wearing coordinated crew oilskins.
So all this my friends, this is the New School.
Both schools taught me one thing overall- keep on learning.
Here in no real order are some of the tips and practices I learned at the new school
1) The Winch - know your weapon
As yacht racing crew you are sooner or later going to be a foresail trimmer. You are going to be in the "snake pit" grinding away and jumping around.
The first thing to learn is that boats under 26 feet don't really need winches- they add friction and slow down the process. Some with big genoas maybe do need them, but then you can consider single turn and cross winching. Also you should be able to do spinnaker hoists without grinding on a winch at least, and if your mast man is fit and has good "paw cleats" ie heavy feet, then you can hoist without using a winch at all, even up to 40 feet.
A good helm will optimise tacks, hoists and gybes with good oversight of the maneuvre, such that the crew are not exposed to early gybing and then sheeting under pressure.
The next thing coming from this is that in light winds on even som big boats, when under spinnaker you also don't need winches for the sheet, and in sub 35 foot boats you dont need it for the pole. You are much better off flying from the blocks and controlling both the pole and the sheet in coordination. Further to this, when you choose to gybe or luff tactically, the competition don't get an advanced warning with all that grinding, and the crew can remain in position and not shake the speed out the boat.
A vital thing to grasp is that winches are "dextral" ie all standard winches turn the spiral of rope clockwise. If you are right handed then, you can set winches 100% right all the time by taking the rope over the top of your left hand ,no matter where you are in the boat.
Further to doing things right every time, on a beat after final trim, always take the handle out and stow it in the pocket or cave hole.
Riding turns are nasty, they get called "English Man on Board" in Norway funnily enough, and a good way of getting them out is to learn the use of the timber hitch ( skipper hitch) from the auxiallry winches to the sheet to release the pressure. Alternatively if the turn is at the last two meters of a very long sheet, you can cut it as you tack and retie on the new leeward side. A pal of mine who is actually really experienced, broke his thumb trying to ease one out nicely and he is a joiner so it affected his livelyhood, costing much more than a new sheet.
I mentioned above, cross-winching: this needs to be trained at, but it is vital in competition on light boats like the Farr (Mumm) 30, because you get your weight up for the final trim and can play out if needs be from the rail.
You can also use winches "out of position" . Ideally on boats over about 35 feet there should be six winches IMHO- pit, coach roof and aft- this allows for full control of genoa while halyard and spinnaker set ups are managed, and especially when using double sheets anf guys. On a smaller, 4 winch boat you can often set the guy
Finally on winches, a really great tip especially on those without self tailing cleating, is that with enough coils round, you can take your one hand and squeeze the whole coil while releasing the cleating with the other hand. Usually there is then enough extra friction to hold even a big genoa, and you can use this to ease out just a little under control, play with a handle in on say a tight reach or be ready for tacks and bear-aways with the cleat off.
2) The Tell Tales and the Vaker / Burgee / Windex
The old school taught me right- tell tales on the jib are an aid to trimming, not something to slavishly trim to. Also that windexes are not to be trusted, and I explained my basic understanding of the physics or fluid dynamics involved in their "lieing"!
However you do get benefit from other tell tales than the lower genoa ones: how soon the upper tell tales break can help with twist, luff tension and draught position. Also you should fit leach tell tales where the light weather foresail feeds the main most, and on a big genoa light 1, lower down too. This lets you see the sail is exhausting right and that the all important "2+2=5" of the accelerated air over the leesides of both sails is working and not in a back eddy.
Main tell tales are of course of use, the top one can be obeyed slavishly and does a wonderful job of resolving a hold load of otherwise complex physical calculations if it did not exist. Lower tell tales can help with how the rest of the sail is exhausting- on a beat you sometimes need to de-hook the lower batten by flattening the foot on the outhaul - it is lighter air down here. Some mains are cut quite nastily for this, like an X332 main i sailed with, and you nearly always have to take in the foot, unless you have chop and the main is down the traveller, then you can add depth low down.
The top tell tale is not only to be used in trimming underway, it is fantastic for tacking with a genoa, because the main sets so much faster on the new tack than the genoa and you can judge you are far off the wind by it ( see below on tacking)
The lower tell tales can also help you decide on traveller setting for reaching- this varies by boat type, but many a boat sails with the traveller too far down and only the top half of the sail drawing, while others have the traveller too high up with too much a twist angle up the sail, stalling the sail. You can on a reach, trim badly such that the top draws and flies tell tales while one or more lowers are under trimmed.
Some folk and boats have "tufts" which are tell tales i the mid third of the main. They have to be placed correctly so that disturbance from the mast does not affect them much. Although essential for the last very final trim n sail shape on the Tasar for example, I am not an advocate of these and they fall into "distraction, like instruments" for me.
Back to lieing - if you have sticky tell tales, or they fly erratically, just steer the boat a little or sheet out to see if in fact they are all colluding to not tell you about a wind shift or wrong course.
Advance Use of Ignoring the Tell Tales
Another more advanced trim and steer technique relates to those many keel boats and cruiser-racers which rely on luff sag to power the boat up. Here the forestay is a little loose as of course it has to swing into the sag on both tacks. What happens here is that as you luff up too far, the forestay moves into the centre, and this happens BEFORE the tell tales lift due to the attached flow and upwash effect over them. Thus you can optimise your height / speed pay off and correct for knocks from waves or lulls by "pressing" on the jib - bearing off a little to load up the jib once the boat has stalled a little.
In a building breeze, eventually you see that the forestay becomes very unstable and then it is time to wang on the back stay, or change the rig for the next race. The converse is more difficult but the main trimmer will probably let the back stay out in a falling breeze.
On boats with a rock hard forestay but a fine entry, like say the 59er, you can sometimes see a slight backing of the sail before the lower tell tales fly, but usually here you should look at your upper tell tales as they will fly first and before the luff of the sail.
3) Look No Instruments...!
Further to windexes and logs : there is more to gain in learning the groove feel in varying conditions than sitting glued to your instruments.
I see only two uses for instruments- tuning a boat up in absence of other identical boats around who have known good boat speed, and night sailing.
"The groove" can often feel very neutral and even slow. In the J109 for instance, this is the case- the boat seems to settle down and it feels slow, but here the instruments help - the speed goes nicely up to max if you look at the log. Once you have the feel, and can reproduce the sail settings and helming to get there, then you can spend more time thinking about the wind ahead or tactics or strategy than about boat speed.
Having your head "Out of the Boat" is a race winning philosophy. Maybe you don't have the fanciest carbon sails and so on, if you are able to get a shift or put your boat on starboard against a port fleet then there are much bigger wins than an eight of a knot instrument boat speed.
The feel for the groove is often down to balance and loading on sheets and the rudder and heel in a keel boat at least. This varies greatly across boat designs, with some older big genoa cruiser racers and tonn designs feeling overpowered when they are at max groove. Also there can be different grooves- the groove is the best VMG for conditions, a combination between the aquadynamics over the hull and foils being optimal in relation to the sail power and also the speed and variation in velocity. So you can find in chop or very variable breeze that the otherwise best VMG feel is wrong and you need a lower groove to punch through the knocks and make best overall progress rather than "sawing" your way forward.
Personally I am completely opposed to allowing tactical wind computers and logs on dinghies and ISAF sports boats.
4) Tacking
If you look at top laser sailors or Melges 24 sailors you will see that they have a quite hectic tack choreography. I learned myself to utilise or optimise sheeting on the Tasar for tacking in light airs and then found that I also began to use a quickened up version in medium and even heavy airs.
Through a tack, the boat should not stop - there is probably also an threshold for minimum speed in the sequence which if not exceeded, stalls the boat even more. The boat should in effect sail up to head to wind and then be sailing to some extent at least as soon as it is passed head to wind. Speed into the tack must be as high as possible, and acceleration out of the tack needs to be managed with some finesse.
So tacks which win boat places mean choosing the best point to tack, sheeting in, optimising the turn without breaking with the rudder blade, and then falling off.
On a genoa boat in particular, the helm can use the top tell tale on the main (given the main man is clued up to control the traveller correctly or lock it midships) The genoa will take a few seconds on the new tack to come in, attach flow and then be trimmed rough. The flatter main will flip over and start powering soon after wind eye is passed. Therefore you use the top tell tale, falling off until it is showing over sheeted, and then sheet out a bit on the main until it flies over 75% of the time until the genoa is rough trimmed. Then sail to the genoa a bit and get the fine trim done as speed builds. Then back to the main and trim on, adjusting other controls as well as the sheet.
Going into the tack then, I like to always roll in a little by either oversheeting the main, or steering low a little or letting the crew come off the rail. I then sheet in the main and use just enough tiller to keep the boat turning, often trying to just follow the roll induced turn, but you must flick the bow through the wind on the rudder what ever. I admit to looking at the log on larger cruiser-racers to check if we have good boat speed before we go in, and have a look ahead.
In principle I like to complete a tack onto starboard before a gust and onto port in a gust (in the northern hemisphere) due to the veering effect contra apparent lift. Also I like to tack before a hole if possible or sail on, dipping boats if needs be.
5) Spinnaker Work, Gybing and Off Wind Tactics vs Strategy
Spinnaker trimming is a doddle per se. Gybing however, is a fine art- assymetrics have made it all easier, and apart from the more advanced techniques I blogged about from YouTube examples I found this week.
Assy's I felt were like cheating they are so easy to gybe. I remember having sailed RS400s coming to J125 and us managing a gybe with no stress with three men in a force 2-3. They add their own angle game, P-Stb tactics and boat speed challenges and I prefer racing them now to symmetricals and the often pedetrian procession on the run to be had on the almost exclusively windward-leeward race courses set these days.
However in terms of sailing skills using a pole is really a great challenge for team building.
The first thing to say about gybing is to practice it until you are blue in the face, in all conditions, for the run and for the harder gybe at the gybe mark.
A thing I at least preach, is to get everyone on the crew to steer the boat on a practice session around a three pointed course, on white sails. Repeat this using the pole or a job pole if you like to add more crew choreography. That way they all get a back of the boat feel for what has to be achieved in the two different gybes ie "soft" through less than 70' and harder over 90'.
The next thing to practice is actually sailing along with the pole off on one gybe, shifting angles and both steering, sheeting and barber hauling the kite to behave itself. This way you can avoid panicking when the pole is not on or falls off after a gybe. Also you can move onto more advanced techniques like set-gybe and dummy gybes, leaving drop choice open, dropping to a bow bag or into the forepeak and so on.
Now it is time to practice seriously : sessions should establish who has the competances, and how many will be involved to affect a fast gybe. It may mean two at the mast, three in the pit and two on the cabin top on a forty foot regatta machine in force 5. It may mean two people in a FC8m with the rest of the crew rolling the boat in light airs. People have to then be comfortable in their job and also understand the sequence and timing of the two types of gybe.
I'd say then go back to having each crew steer, as in our M24 all the crew are competent helmsmen, or let them one by one come to the transom and see how the gybe looks and what course they enter and leave on.
Gybing technique and the choreography of weight, muscle and strings varies in different wind stregnths. Here I will talk about light airs in particular:
a) Light Air Spinnaker Gybing ( force 2 ( 3m/s) and under)
Under about 2 knots wind, many spinnakers will collapse and if you start adding a heavy guy to the new guy end where a light sheet was, then that can also kill the kite. First and foremost, forget the winches then, and if you are unsure of the loading on a light sheet, have the guy on the pole end ready to off load the light guy line.
Cut down to one man doing the sheet and guy in the pit and one man on the bow, even on a forty footer- just have people in reserve waiting to pole on from the leeward rail at the shrouds, or near the pit with a winch handle.
Although a very light air gybe will likely be a "reach to reach" gybe , going through maybe 120', it still has to go through DDW and that takes time.
A collapse in the kite is what you most want to avoid. This will invariably wrap around the forestay and you may then need to bag it and relaunch it on the new gybe, losing time, but maybe winning places if everyone has issues. So the kite has to fly in the gybe, which also means you have to fall off with it flying and keep it flying as you harden up.
One tip as you fall off onto a run in say 2.5 meter per second wind, is to slip off the halyard for the spinnie such that it flies forward of the main shadow. You neeed to keep the person on this awake, because it must go back on really for the gybe to avoid a really nasty wine glass. You may also want to raise the pole a little to keep the foot higher up in more wind- the spinnie may end up looking a bit nasty with a meter off the top and a crinkle in the luffs, but it will probably fly and that is the key here- forward of the forestay in its own pressure.
Make sure you have a light "new sheet" on the pole end, and the barberhaulers off altogether if possible. Detach the pole a little early, before DDW, and then keep the kite flying. As you near DDW, the kite trimmer should ease both sheets out 0.75 to 1 m for a 30 footer and nearly two for a 40 footer. This again allows the kite to breath at DDW and gives some more slack for the bowman to pin the pole on the new gybe. The trimmer trims then by the rule of opposites to eliminate curl if it occurs on each luff on the opposite sheet. The bowman should not kill the kite by grabbing the light sheet inboard- if they can make the pole from reaching as long out board as they can, actually as part of the weight transfer roll gybe (you should be doing! and must practice at!).
At the back of the boat, as you fall off to DDW on most boats with a modest main sail area, the main should be trimmed into the middle of the boat such that the wind can flow onto the spinnaker and keep it drawing the boat and clearing the forestay.
The helm should take the boat through DDW now and if the kite flies at DDW with the set up above, then the pole can go on, otherwise if the foot stars to drop then the helm should instruct the trimmer and bowman that they are going to go up 10 ' or so for a fill before the pole should be attached. The trimmer then must trim on the new sheet smoothly and let the old sheet out more in a coordinated action.
The main can be gybed as the boat comes up to about 165' to the wind in both circumstances, and the boat can either be rolled out the gybe when the pole is on, or hardened up sharply with the use of lee heel and mainsail. Some boats react badly to rolling out the gybe and some are too heavy! I would say that if you are reaching up with the kite accelerating, then just go for lee heel and get the flow over the hull attached. If on the other hand the main is baggy and the kite stuggeling, then use the roll out of the gybe , or if your course need to be a little low now, a roll out can help pump the sails for induced acceleration. You can certainly do this on a Farr 30 and more or less any sub 30 foot race prepared boat.
c) Tactical And Strategic Considerations of Gybing in Light Air vs More Breeze
In light air you should avoid tactical situations between boats: you have two things to worry about, keeping boat speed on and staying out of tide. Boat speed means first and foremost staying in the wind and thereby out of competitor or landscape windshadow. Staying in the wind means looking for breeze on the water and going towards it: wind can behave in bands, trained or cut up from longer distance geography or local sun modified bands (convergent, addative breeze along shore lines, banks or shallows) . Alternatively there can be blocks of wind- these are where convection has allowed higher wind to circulate down. In either case getting there is important because once there you will be blown towards the leeward mark because the wind should be going that way.
When there is an even breeze of say 4 knots across the course, you can then sail to keep your wind clear and also then gybe on the lifts, and fall off on the gusts to luff up again once your spinnaker begins to collapse. You should not reach off across a gust of 5 knots on a W-L course, even if it feels nice and fast in a symmetrical spinnie boat- you will sail out of it, and if it is a lift you may not spot the shift. Falling off you stay longer in the gust and also can assess if it is a lift you can gybe on beacuse the new boat speed is creating a lower relative wind as you fall off, not higher as you reach and get the impression it is a header.
In more wind, 6 knots to 16 knots then I like to sail very tactically in stealing other people's wind and using starboard situations. Conversely , kind of negative tactics , I like to avoid boats which are luffing and also allow bigger boats to sail on the windward side, maybe gybing to get out their shadow when they come over. This means that I can concentrate on attacking the boats ahead and sailing the shortest and most tide correct course to the mark.
In heavier winds I want to avoid tactical situations altogether and not toy around with starboard situations or big luffing matches, concentrating instead on boat speed and wave use and maybe only one gybe to get us there. The risks of broaching or someone not seeing you in a Prt-Stb situation are too high in 25 knots wind. For some classes, it can be worth being this cautious in 18 knts wind.
d) Mid Air Gybes
Mid air gybes are then either slack run to run, or borad reach to broad reach, or on passage or torturous round the nav bouy evenings, run to reach.
Use the barber haulers to control the kite, and consider keeping the kite clipped on, having for a few seconds both ends on the kite such that you do not risk losing the new guy and also you can rotate the spinnaker round the boat with a wide gate and grip stance, which pays in some types of boats more than others.
The fall off is very quick, the gybe is done ddw and the main comes over only when the crew are in safe positions. When needing to harden up to a beam reach, the crew know what they are doing and are in position to do this as soon as the pole is made, with particular attention to the pole down haul and uphaul coordination.
e) Spinnaker gybes in force 5 to 6
As the wind builds then you should always use lazy guys or barber haul the sheets right down. You probably should have a mast man who assists the bowman 1) grab the new guy 2) put it in the hook 3) help steer the pole end onto the mast.
Also to have a stable, fast kite, you need to pole back until it is sqaure - this flattens the kite as you fall off to DDW, depowering it and making it stable. Barber hauler must be used on both sides to strap the kite down to decrease verticle instability and maximise sheeting and guy effect from trimming on.
The helm must do one last check at DDW for crew are safe and that the sea behind will not pick them up too much, choosing to get the pole done on the top of the passing wave and gybe before the bow is ploughed down by the next if possible.
The pole is made quickly and this is shouted to the helm after it is double checked by the bowman for connection and seal at both ends. The pole can be off quite early in lazy sheet situations and in the new one under the blanket of the main.
The main comes over when the crew are in position and until this the helm sails cautiously just off the lee and then swings through the gybe
f) above f 6
The problem with f6 and f7 is that the wind can be quite unstable and the sea may be building. F8 actually can mean a tighter average windspeed but risks peak winds above this.
The gybe on spinnaker is affected by the hoist: the boat must reduce the apparent wind to hoist the kite safely, reaching on white sails from a plain bear away. Once the kite is up, if the seastate allows for it, then one gybe can be tried. If it goes well then you should aim to "soak" down to the mark and not need to gybe again for the port rounding. Take time to reef more and reduce foresail if the wind is building, and then go for an early, leeward drop using the lazy guy onto a winch, possibly a letter box drop, but with the kite taken at the shrouds so as to be blanketed by the main, and taken on the run .
In sportier boats, like say the X35, you may well want to avoid any spinnaker work in over 30 knts wind. IN boats with no reefing points when you are presumably caught by a squall or weather front at over 30 knts wind, always "chicken" gybe by reaching up, tacking by folding the boat over and then falling off to the new course avoiding reaching too far before you fall off to DDW. In large boats which can take the wind but maybe the crew cannot tackle the gybe, consider rigging up a smaller spinnaker and do a drop on the old gybe, up with the jib, gybe and then prepare and hoist on the new gybe. This is to be recommended in f5 at night actually, in any state of sea as the bowmans work is much safer.
g) Spinnaker Settings and Technique.
Spinnaker trimming is pretty straight forward, but getting the combination of pole height and projecttion right and then tuning with the barber haulers can mean taking the sail maker out with you.
Also remember that all boats are affected by the balanced lever effects of main boom versus spinnaker boom and sheet point- on sports boats with symmetrical spinnaker like the Platu 25, it is important to maintain pressure on the kite in order not to broach ie keep the kite driving when the main is ! The main should be dumped first on a reach, kicker, sheet and you will want to flatten the main for a beam reach in a f4 or more. The main trimmer can stand up on the windward deck to aid communication to the kite trimmer and put more weight on the rail.
To depower a spinnaker, generally we use too much pole- back for the run and a little down, flattening the entry and foot. Down and forward for a reach we need to depower, we stretch it down and open the exit leach by slipping out the barber hauler. Effectively this makes an assyemtric of many sails where the entry can be made flat. To depower we first allow for a good deal of curl before then letting the sheet off to flag out the spinnaker- a jib should be hoisted in the brisker conditions you are reaching in- even broad reaching when the kite is a big one.
In light airs too, we can actually do the same, more projection if we have enough pressure to run deep, or a flatter entry and a high, open exit if we are sailing reach to reach in order keep pressure on.
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