Generally we set Kraken up symmetrical on both tacks but this is something we'll now be changing. This has got us to the middle of the fleet but to get further up we're going to have to work our brains a bit harder.
Coming back from SD after the Beneteau Cup we had some wind in the middle of the day and were trucking along at 6-8 knots somewhere between close hauled and a close reach depending on the moment. As the wind dropped and veered we ended up close hauled and in the swell, slow.
Looking at the sails for a bit it seemed that the top third of the Jib might be pretty close to the back of the main. Though each sail had it's telltales flying well we were down to four knots in six knots of wind.
We opened up the top of the jib to the extent it was luffing a bit in the waves (keeping it strapped on the shroud at the bottom), and pulled the main in a bit tighter so that it was stalling a little at the top and this opened up the slot a lot better.
Without the wind changing we sped up to 5 - 5.5 knots, though I will admit that we cracked of 2-3 degrees as well.
During the Beneteau Cup offshore races this might have really helped. There was a sharp swell on the nose on starboard and the beam on port. On port we were trucking and on starboard we were losing a lot of momentum in the waves. Losing a couple of degrees to gain a lot of speed probably would have been a great bargin.
To get this right we probably want to open up the twist as we see bigger waves coming.
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