Freddie's Goals for 2014 part I: Tacking

Once again of late, I come upon a great little video of the wonderful wee j22 marked up as a J232 on YouTube. One of the crew is Johnstone by name, probably no coincidence there.

This video is a must see for all sports boats / sports yacht helms and crews. It shows some fairly advanced techniques- cross winching and the crew weight staying up 

For my own self improvement, it is coming out of the tack which has been a bug bear all my sailing career, not going into the tack although like a corner on a racing bike, you go in bad, you cannot recover on a good exit!

Unfortunately  the wind is a little too strong here to judge just how the j22 Helm is able to hit the nail on the head each time. That is to say, swinging the boat enough, not too much and then being close hauled asap, with only a small call for a new trim and final harden up - all done in seconds.

I guess he is using the main sail, and here is a good point for new beginners and more experienced alike when sailing with a traveller: centre the traveller off before tacking!

In this video they are sailing in what looks like an sub tropical atlantic force 4 to 5, which is to say that a heavy, humid wind is increasing the pressure the wind affects on the sails.

Two criticisms of this tack would be on the entry - firstly he does not trim on the main to help flatten the sail and keep it driving the boat up. In a small boat like this you can also uncleat it as the pressure comes off as you round up, but a hank on and then a hank off once out the tack are good. Secondly, he uses a lot of rudder, you can see it is over 60' at its worst. In the gybes they roll gybe the boat with the rudder just following. Maybe swinging the boat hard round in a J22 on the rudder is a way to get through the tack best, but in most sporties you want to induce windward pointing by sheeting in on the main and maybe letting the back stay off a little, and the this helps heel the boat as the crew come off the rail and you come up to the wind.

On what I can do right out of the tack: I tend to try and use the main sail as a guide and leave it cleated hard on, centred on the traveller, with back stay released on some boat types, such that the sail fills early and the boat naturally arrests any tendency to bear off too far. Then I fall off to until the top tell-tale is wrapped round the back and then I slip out the main a little. Such can the crew with a big genoa get it in while the boat is powering on an angle very near to optimum.

In more cases than most though I need to use some rudder and this I get wrong: too little, too much, timing wrong. So I mess up the entry a little and then on the exit I have both braked the boat and have either too much swing momentum or not enough as I try to straighten up.

Another fault on this line is JUST coming through enough and then dogging it with poor acceleration, not what you want on a lee bow attempt or on the final three boat legnths into the windward mark.

Conversely I can sail a very long S shaped fall off and harden up, when in effect I stall the new flow over the sails by falling off too hard and they need to be trimmed out and the boat sailed in a scoop up on the wind: if you think about this, if there was no need to rebuild speed by going low, then I have fallen down a half boat legnth at least and back maybe a boat length - so on the next tack if I have to duck one boat position in the fleet, then I am back five boat lengths for a small mistake!

Really I should try and practice what this guy does- a fast tack - and get the feeling for what is right for the wind strength and the boat type I am on. Can I use the main tell tales? Do I use heel-&-feel, or do I wait for the jib to come in before I know the tack is good?

Next from this is to use the compass and know what bow angles you will be going through in different winds- a polar tacking table in effect. Then I can get used to the age old technique of sighting something to aim for and tacking when it is off my shoulder to the degree I get to know is right.

So it is back to basics for me: centre the traveller, use plenty of helm to start learning again. This is where sailing a light dinghy like a tasar as my first boat, has create keel boat issues because you use little helm.

So a Learning Routine for Myself

1) cleat off traveller centred.
2) view safe to tack.
3) Call it ready.about
4) Sheet in on the main, steer and call " lee-ho"
5) Spin the main cleat, stepping over, still turning with the tiller extension dinghy style behind, holding on to the main sheet.
6) Rotate my back foot and then Rotate the tiller extension round. Ease the turn as you come out
7) Get the main filled and then centre the tiller and let the main out.
8) Head down if you need to drive the boat off.
9) call for the final trim-on and do both sails in coordination
10) Play the traveller as needs be.