Rod Davis
Free speed
Let’s get the basics right before we enter the confusing world of detail. We all spend a lot of time at regattas, some
big-time ones but most likely smaller local grass roots regattas. The things you discover sailors not understanding, or perhaps appreciating, in the quest for boat speed, can be startling. Near-
fundamental stuff that limits performance, and luckily is pretty easy to rectify. Giving it some thought: it’s the sailors’ fault really that ‘they don’t know what they don’t know’. So let’s go at some big ones, and how to learn what you didn’t know or didn’t appreciate… before reading this month’s column! A clean boat is a fast boat. How clean? If you are talking about
the bottom of the boat, cleaned within an inch of its life! Water is actually sticky stuff that will try to seize hold of about anything to keep from slipping down the hull. On a dinghy water’s favourite grab is road dirt and baked-on salt. Cleaning each day is important, and start with a big clean after travelling. Not a rinse with the hose, it’s elbow grease stuff. Boats that are kept in the water are a wee bit trickier, requiring
more effort. None of this ‘out of sight, out of mind’ lazy thinking. This is important. Like riding your bike uphill on flat tyres – not going to be fast. Find a diver or keen young crew who will become the hero of the
team because any kind of slime below the waterline, even that little noticeable fur or nub, is super slow. All the gains or advantages you got purchasing that new sail,
gone! It’s all undone and more, because you didn’t clean your bottom before racing. Like within an inch of its life, I mean, seriously!
32 SEAHORSE
The warmer the water the faster things grow. Mediterranean – clean the boat every morning. The Solent or San Francisco, the day before the regatta starts will be fine for the next few days. Of course, bottom cleaning for a world championship regatta is
a different thing, an everyday thing. No-brainer speed gain. Your choice. Mind you, there should be
a warning label saying ‘going slow because the bottom of your boat has not been cleaned can cause mental health problems, leading to irritability, and perhaps sometimes even depression.’ So bottom clean, we get that. But also clean the topsides and
deck. It’s a mental thing. When your boat is clean it looks like she is ready for business, then you and your team will sail better. If the boat looks like it just got dragged out from under the house, full of leaves and dead bugs… come on, man! Another speed killer is all the accumulation of crap on a boat.
Maybe boats are like garages, they collect junk. Five half-used tubes of sunscreen, two extra life-jackets, extra water, dock lines, fenders, sails that have no chance of being used today or ever. Be a weight Nazi… can I say that? No, OK, but be obsessed with noextra weight. I can hear some old salts saying ‘hang on there, not always true’.
And, yes, I am old enough to have sailed Metre boats… A quick lesson on Metre boats and boats with long graceful over-
hangs, bow and stern. When you sink those boats by adding weight they get longer. Longer is real good for hull speed. You know hull speed… hull speed = 1.34 X √(waterline length in feet). Lost? Forget it, you’re too young. Besides, you’re not sailing a
Metre boat, are you. Just stick with going light. Next speed-sapping killer we all battle with is water in the boat. Nothing good happens with water in the bilge of your boat. It runs
MAX RANCHI
VERNON STRATTON/PPL
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