Technique: Tacking

Tacking, on Kraken.

We have better tacking days and worse. In general they are getting better and better. We've tried a few ways of doing this but what follows seems to be the procedure that's working.

Tacking is a teamsport, and getting it right can make all the difference in upcoming crosses with our competitors.

• Prep
• As soon as we've tacked we get ready to tack again, the lazy sheet on the winch with no slack to the sail, the working sheet belayed ready to run free.
• Ideally the helm gives some warning - "Tacking in five boat lengths", though this is not always posible
• Helm: call "ready to tack". Everyone responds "Ready" of course... if not clearly call "NOT ready and give a time estimate, "NOT ready, need 30 seconds". Timing of tacks is normally critical happening either in response to the wind, or a tactical decision based on the fleet positions
• Main: Secures the lazy traveller to prevent the main running across the boat
• Trimmers: Makes sure enough wraps are on the new winch with the handle in place
• Trimmers: Make sure the new jib lead is in the power position (#7 with our secondary #1 sail, #5 with our 3Di #1).
• Helm: call "Helms a lee"
• Tacking
• Main: Release the backstay
• Main: as the boat starts turning the main trimmer goes to the low side and releases the working jib sheet as the headsail luffs. This makes sure there is space for the trimmers and tailer who otherwise often pin the main trimmer highside.
• Tailer: Start aggresively tailing, watching the clew position, when it reaches "just the right place" [which for a #1 headsail is around the shrouds on the new side and before the sail starts to fill] the tailer launches themselves to the new high side taking the line with them and continues applying pressure from the high side. If timed correctly this pulls the sail inside the lifelines and leaves it in about the power position. Thinking about it we should mark the lines so this is can be done consistently.
• Grinder: Grind the drum as fast as possible, this makes sure overrides spin out and means there is no pause between tailing and trimming.
• Bow: Skirt
• Main: Bring the traveller up to the new side. Wait until the sail fills and then let a little sheet out (unless in strong winds) as the helm drives down to meet the headsail's power position. Use the fine tune to let this sheet out.
• Helm: Drive down a little (sail to the headsail in it's power position)
• Grinder: The grinder becomes the trimmer. We're looking for the head of the sail to be about a hands width outside the top spreader for the initial power position. 
• Recovery
• Trimmer: As speed builds (>5 knots) starts letting the jib lead come back to the pointing position, about #3 for the crappy headsail, perhaps #1 for the good sail. At the same time trim in further until the base is close to the shrouds and the top of the sail just about touching the shrouds. In low winds the tailer can manage the jib lead while the trimmer trims in the headsail to its final pointing position.
• Helm: Bring the boat up as the headsail changes to its pointing positions
• Main: Bring the fine tune in to close the leech and drive the boat up.
• Main: As speed builds pull the backstay back on

The backbone of a good tack here is - start with full wraps on the winch and the handle in. Spin that handle and the grinder goes straight into trim mode.

Modifications

• Light winds
• Roll tacking, pit forwards shifts weight low at the start of the turn to help the boat around, swaps back to the original side (now the low side) as the sails fill and shift back high side to bring the boat back upwards.
• Leave the sails a bit deeper, leave the jib lead forwards closer to the power position
• Really light winds - just trying to get the boat moving.
• Perhaps flatten the sails again
• Take up another sport
• Strong winds
• Go straight to pointing trim rather than fighting the under powered jib lead (we're going to beef these up a bit but likely still a bit underpowered). Not roll tacking, weight goes highside and hikes as hard as possible
• Waves
• Trim: Leave a bit more twist in the main sails, don't sheet in quite so hard.
• Helm: Time the tack so the next wave helps pull the bow down on the new side
• Single handed
• With autopilot:
• Lock main traveller, get both jib sheets in hand
• Trigger tack on AP (-1&-10 or +1&+10).
• Sheet like mad to power position
• Trim main quickly
• Adjust AP to get sails pulling
• Start fine tuning
• Get back on helm and sail to the wind
• Without autopilot
• Same as above but using the wheel lock and stopping the tack from in front of the wheel

Technique: Don't luff all your telltales.... perhaps even stall a few

Our practice / casual race #1 sail has seen better days.

It's leech hooks horribly, even after some basic surgery.

It won't point.

It's teaching me how to sail upwind better, I think....

Traditionally you are taught to get all your tell tales to lift at the same time. Doing that with this sail leaves the foot loose, and sailing to the lower tell tales left us tacking through about 100 degrees.

So.... Forget the "all telltales luff at once" approach. I'm going to thank the North U trim book here, which honestly I need to thank on many many levels as it's generally awesome. Trim the foot in so the bottom telltale is bordering on stalling while the top tell tales are on the verge of luffing.

Having tried this, once, in light air, I can testify that we managed to point pretty well, better than we could before.

My guess is also that the twist this adds to the sail works two fold, firstly it allows the bottom to point higher as its sheeted tighter and secondly as the boat pitches it means there's some part of the sail that still works.

Three boats out in our class tonight. Two short WL legs in a dying breeze. Led through first WL then lost it on the second upwind. Came out deep from our first tack and then had to duck Shamen, if we hadn't messed up the first tack I think we'd have pretty much laid the mark in the persistent shift we were seeing, and won, but oh well.

I need to practice helming tacks, again, and again, and again....

This may or may not provide a link to the track.

Our baggy #1 has gone from a 8 -> 4 jib lead position. Our good #1 was sheeted at 5 before, what will it be now?

Going further with this....

The deep "all tell tales lift at the same time" is good for acceleration. So good off the line and good coming out of a tack, then bring leads back and sheet in at the same time to move to pointing mode.

Technique: Gybing - End for End

We spent some time with dip pole gybes but never got comfortable. We got a few to work pretty well but there were always snags, the new guy going into the jaw the wrong way, the pole getting caught up on the lazy sheet, the pole pulling the sail down as it was dipped etc and really it never got as quick as I know it can be done.

So we returned to end for end gybes and things got fast immediately. Kraken has a Carbon Fibre pole, which is pretty light but it still gets unwieldy at times, so we're probably about as big a boat as you can manage the end for end on. Luckily for us winds in Oceanside in particular, but also San Diego tend to be on the lighter side which I think helps.

End for end also seems easier to accomplish single handing.

The succinct(?) explanation is:

• We turn the sail around the forestay and the boat through the wind at the same time keeping turning all the way to the new course. As the boat is passing dead down wind the sail should be past the front of the boat, will roll from one side to the other and the main is gybed. At the same time we release the pole, relying on the back of the boat to keep the sail flying as the boat continues to turn to its new course. Once the pole is set we switch control sheets / guys to the new side and high five as our competition sighs in appreciation of the awesomeness they just saw, though honestly they won't even know we've gybed until they hear the calls of starboard and have to luff horrendously rounding up in the procedure. Suckers!

More detail:

• Preparation:
• Helm: "Prepare to jibe!!"
• Pit: Make sure foredeck is in agreement
• Foredeck: We bring the lazy guy on the new side to the mast, ready to put in the jaws. [With one person, get it done. With two people, one is ready to snap in the new guy and one controls releasing the pole from the old guy at the right moment. With three the third person helps as needed, helping keep the sail flying as a human pole or communicating status back to the back of the boat and keeping an eye on things if hands are not needed.]
• Helm: Call the start of the turn "Jibe Ho"
• Everyone else: Critique as needed, the back of the boat is most likely to mess up the gybe so build some evidence to the contrary.
• Initial Turn to DDW [Dead Down Wind]  - 10 seconds:
• Foredeck: We bring the pole down to a height that is as high as possible while allowing the us to get the pole back on the mast. On Kraken the pole flies a couple of feet higher than you can reach comfortably. As the pole comes down the sail is less efficient and we are starting our turn.
• Pit: Slack on the uphaul as needed for pole drop, in unison with foredeck, extra slack as needed for pole disconnect. Assist trimmers, make sure sheets are in place for new course.
• Trim: The sail is rotated around to a deep configuration, pole back, sheet forwards. The sheet should be within a couple of feet of the forestay.
• Helm: As the sail rotates we rotate the boat under it.
• Main: Assist trimmers, making sure sheets are ready for new side
• The Switchover- 10 seconds:
• Foredeck: As the boat passes dead down wind we trip the pole, to allow the foredeck crew to work pit has given them some extra uphaul and down haul / foreguy slack. The sail will lean from one side of the boat to the other as the wind changes sides and this is the time to release the pole.
• Foredeck: Communicate with the back of the boat
• Pit: Communicate forwards and backwards. Call the trip when you see the sail rotate.
• Trim: Keep the sail rotating to its new side, don't over trim, make sure it is around the forestay before we go DDW and communicate with the helm if we are turning to fast or can turn faster. Keep the sail flying and don't oversheet and flatten it against the side of the boat!
• Helm: We don't stop rotating the boat but keep going through downwind to our course on the new gybe. Make sure we turn with the sail.
• Main: Pull main over to new side, catch it as it goes to take a little shock out of  the gybe
• The CleanUp - 20 seconds:
• Foredeck: Attaches the lazy sheet in the jaw that came off the mast and pushes the pole out and forwards (about 45 degrees from the bow) in order to reattach the new base of the pole to the mast.
• Foredeck: Gets pole back up to correct height
• Pit: Pole back up to correct height, downhaul and uphaul nice and snug. Assist with trim
• Trim: Switch control from old sheet to new guy (new guy in, then release old sheet).
• Trim: Switch control from old guy too new sheet (new sheet in, the release old guy).
• Main: Assist with trim as needed
• Helm: Concentrate on new course, work with Trim to keep the sail flying

When single handing:

• Use the autopilot!
• Rotate the sail and turn deep but not DDW (say 160 to 170 depending on track AP can run and shiftyness of wind).
• Gybe the boat and the main to new side. Sail deep again to keep the sail in front of the boat, but not so deep that epxected windshifts or autopilot wander will lead the boat below 170 true.
• Slack the uphaul and downhaul and go forward to move the pole over (bring pole down, put to new side, take back up, take uphaul forwards to snug it)
• Return to the cockpit, make sure I'm happy with the up / downhaul and adjust sheets
• Get to proper new course according to polars.

When done correctly this takes about three minutes at the moment, so I'm not gybing on minor shifts but I often make mistakes and it can take up to 10 minutes to properly settle on the new course. Practice....

Links: SailingWorld HowTo

Sailing world has a really nice HowTo section with lots of explanations of racing tactics and rules plus general tips (how to use a winch, how to account for leeway etc).

Cruising world has something similar, aimed at cruisers. Here's the section on Seamanship.

Happy Sunday!

Links: Currents and Winds

While looking at the yellowbrick track for the Newport Bermuda race going on now I found this really beautiful display of currents and wind worldwide.


Here are winds:

And here are currents:

It seems more useful for larger currents than taking advantage of local eddies here on the San Diego coastline. For that I've tried paying attention to HF radar information but have felt that sometimes the information doesn't exactly match what I find on the water. That being said my guess is that this is being improved all the time.

Races: 500 boats still racing

Looks like weather conditions were fairly tough for the 2014 Round the island race. Not as tough as the Border Run we did earlier this year but so light that 500 boats have retired. It's 7:30pm in the UK at the moment and the bulk of the fleet is starting to finish, 500 boats retired, 500 finished, 500 to go!

Technique: raceQs2 - leeway

My muscles ache. No spinnaker today, just a short WL course and round it five times.

I tried to tack on the shifts, but when I looked at the course in raceQs it looked like I was just taking through 90 degrees. According to the output I'm slipping sideways a lot, getting on for ten degrees of it going upwind. Going to need to get that down.

There are two obvious changes - clean the bottom and use race sails - but I think trim and tacking technique can also help.

Next week I'll have another go, once my shoulders are functional again. I'm going to try several different configurations (assuming the conditions are similar, 1-2 foot slop, 8 knots of wind).

- More backstay, less headstay sag
- Headsail out a little
- Mainsail out a little
- Main and head out a little
- Main and head out a little, then trim in as the boat goes a bit faster (try and get the boat into the 5s before trimming in).

Quite a lot to test in one session, may take several to get a better understanding but I'm sure it can be improved.

Visual example of the leeway

And the whole track, why my muscles ache!

Oh - somewhere in there Kraken did a lovely luff around the windward mark, I got lifted close to it, didn't try and lay it but shoved around it using momentum, another new trick.

Addendum: This is what I've learnt - try it out yourself!

Software: raceqs

Playing with RaceQs it seemed to get some good data from our race last night. It's estimating time lost on tacks, has a clear display of speed over time.

It's not perfect - last night it failed to record the time lost on a gybe and on my previous recording didn't get the tack points or estimated wind. FAQs suggest this was because the phone wasn't mounted (it was, yet we do get estimated wind from last night when it wasn't!).

What looks really interesting is if you can get multiple boats using it at the same time then it'll record differences between them, show wind ladders etc.

I'm not sure what links work with and without a login:

My "Journal"

Last night's race

Better go test it some more right now....

Video: Dolphins

Dolphins came back to Oceanside. Been a while but last week we saw a few and yesterday I saw hundreds.

More solo spinnaker sailing and trying to tune upwind. Also recorded the sail at raceQs.com - there's a nice replay using google earth and it allows you to easily see your speed variation during the track. Reminds me that I've really got to push on my own recording and analysis code that also had all the instrument data.

RaceQs though does seem like it will be able to highlight differences in tacking efficiency, speed etc pretty nicely.

Links: Anarchy

If you haven't checked out SailingAnarchy take a look.  The blog has a consistent stream of information on things happening in the sailing world (mainly racing) and is often irreverent and pretty sharp about the current state of affairs. The forums are downright funny, with a huge amount of information from some pretty knowledgeable sailors hidden in-between the abuse.

Technique: Been doing it all wrong

More solo sailing today. Working to reduce my reliance on the autopilot I got the boat out of the harbor sailing without it and then took a brisk few tacks upwind without it. Having cleared a few miles offshore in a building breeze I turned back on shore and set the spinnaker. Doing a "gybe set" (meaning in this case, gybe then set the pole, then hoist) took a while and getting the pole setup was taking ages so I started using the AP again - beats running bow to stern all the time. Knowing to press the +1 and -1 on the Raymarine ST60 to adjust the accuracy is awesome!

Once set I took a 045 course heading for the pier, some way off, and played with trim. For this last year we've been playing the spinnaker with the pole just above head height and the shoulder breaks, perhaps the top 60-70%. Today I started pushing the pole up, first six inches, then a foot and finally about 2 feet higher than normal. This brought the break right down to the middle and lifted the speed .5kts, perhaps more difficult to tell as the breeze lifted from 8 to 10kts while I was playing.

The spinnaker felt a bit more skittish when trimming but what was really interesting to me was that when I turned downwind and gybed it seemed a lot steadier than normal - I always avoid Dead Down Wind as the vortex off the main wraps the spinnaker around the forestay in a jiffy but today I was sailing just a little above DDW without worry. I also feel that the speed was held deeper than before which could be very useful.

Three gybes complete, all pretty quick and painless and I came up on a reach, (about 100 to 120) back towards the pier. As the breeze got up to 12kts at times the AP was definitely having problems holding the course and I hand steered a bit. Probably could have done more to help it as I released the vang but didn't otherwise try and depower the main. Didn't spend much time on the reach but next week I'm going to experiment with pole back down again to try and pull the draft forwards, vs up to flatten the sail.

I learnt a new trick during the gybes, perhaps more obvious because of the higher pole position - snugging the uphaul pulls the pole forwards to the kite on the new guy. Getting the afterguy, uphaul and downhaul all nice and snug helps hold the pole forwards (I'm still debating foreguy vs downhaul - see downhaul vs foreguy).

Speed peaked at somewhere over 8 knots.

Managed to keep the kite dry on the drop this time and got home in time to put Wyn down for his afternoon nap.

Gotta remember to mark the new pole position.

Really happy with the new trim. We've been sluggish downwind, not terrible just sluggish and as well as doing lots of reading on tactics but getting a bit of extra boatspeed would be killer!

I wonder about rigging a small line from the wheel to the bow so I can steer from up there.....

Technique: New tricks

New tricks.

Had a good practice, barring one blemish that we'll need to work on - but knew we needed to work on.

It was all simple stuff, but it went well. We practiced coming up close to the wind, blowing the headsail to avoid backfill and being forced to tack. Got up to about 10 degrees off the wind with the main super high. Boom was above centreline to do this, perhaps we don't need to do that? Also need to practice the fall off and acceleration to find out how long it takes to get to full speed in different wind conditions and how many boat lengths that equates to.

Downwind we practiced scalloping (ventilating in Buddy Melges speak). Winding the boat up above ideal course to pick up speed then trying to work down. We also switched back to end-for-end gybes and after the first one they were pretty smooth, the spinnaker flying well through the maneuver and course changes nice and precise. The other thing we had a shot at downwind was lazy gybing, leaving the pole on the same side and switching to the other course for a few boat lengths before switching back.

The only blemish was our gybe set, which took several minutes to get the sail full and pulling. Need to work on this, seemed like we had several issues to resolve including a large twist in the spinnaker, a slow pole set and genoa drop. This was the first time we've actually tried to practice this outside a race and we'll be back again - looking to get the time down. I actually think it's gone faster when we've done it in a race, probably due to sheer panic.

Coming in at the end we passed a 41s5. While it was obviously not a racing boat but setup for cruising it was interesting how much faster we were, being able to luff up from several boat lengths below to a boat length above, have a good look, then dive off and head for home underneath them (being polite).

Oh - finally saw some dolphins, its been weeks since I've seen them around Oceanside but there came up and swam under the bow right as we were dropping the headsail. Beautiful view of them but no time to slap a camera in the water. Good to see them back again!

Links: Updated links

There are a bunch of great videos and information links here with both basic learn to sail and fairly advanced (single handed spinnaker gybes, how to eek performance out of a race boat from north sails etc).

If anyone has links that should be added to this page let me know!