We can’t all be as good as Dennis Conner and his formidable follow-you-to-the-ends-of-the-earth Stars & Stripes sailing team. The successful 1987 America’s Cup challenger comes onto the wind in Fremantle with what the writer describes as the perfect leeward rounding technique… With minimal use of rudder the main is trimmed all the way up as the boat turns, the headsail remaining at cracked-sheets until almost fully on the wind when the final wind-on helps draw the boat up to maximum VMG – and without giving away an inch of height. Or (opposite) the other way, lots of helm applied to force the bow up against a jib that has been wound on too early… meanwhile, the mainsail trimmer frantically tries to pull in a slack mainsheet. Seen worse, though
The main trim is a key to boatspeed out of the rounding. Also the turn, but we are coming to that.
Last on #3, grunt. Muscle, whatever you want to call it. The mainsheet is significantly harder and a longer grind than the jib. By miles. So our best people need to be on the job. As many of them as we can find. Maximum output for five seconds. Summary Main before rudder, jib never over-trimmed, both matching the rate of turn.
Note for the crew whether you are a team of two or 20: no clean-up! Don’t really care if there is a mess as long as things are semi under control and by the time the transom passes the mark you’re into a ‘Super 60’. For the next 60 seconds maximum hike. That brings us to steering the turn. If you’re leading, shortest distance sailed has you on the wind as your transom passed the mark. If you are not leading you’re on the wind when the bow gets to the mark. Rough rules of thumb: leading, one-ish boat lengths away from the mark you start your turn up; and not leading two-ish boat lengths away. All this is dictated before you arrive at two boat lengths. At three or four boat lengths you need to start positioning for the turn you need to make.
Once you start turning you want a smooth increase in rudder angle. The main should be helping you here, hopefully. Tip: it’s OK
to increase your rate of turn smoothly; if you turn too early or too quickly and have to stop or slow your turn, that is bad. The reason… a boat turning is happier to keep turning in the same direction. Stopping the turn and then making it turn again takes energy and makes the boat slow out of the mark. Definitely not what we are looking for here.
Another tip: don’t cut the corner on the boat ahead. Being close to him does us no good in this case. We need to be faster. Falls under the heading ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should!’ Picture that we have all done our jobs. Sail trim perfectly matches the rate of turn. We are on the wind; the crew are hiking, and we are faster than the boat ahead. Now we just need to sail a course 5° higher than him. We don’t want to get closer to the boat ahead, we just want to get further to windward, turning our extra speed into a little height. To end up half a boat length to windward of the boat ahead of us is a win.
It will be difficult to steer here – the bubble and wakes of all the boats, including your own, make the boat feel like s**t. Be smooth and stay up off that boat ahead. Remember we are not looking for a miracle pass here. We just want to get away from this mark, limit the damage until we go into attack mode again. It all comes down to being fast through the water as you leave the mark. Then you have options. And that, my friend, comes down to everyone doing their job in an excellent way.
One last tip: might be a good idea to practise it a few times so everyone knows their part. Just say’n. * Google
SEAHORSE 33
AJAX
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110
