Top Tip for 2012 Sailing fast in wind and waves
Jeremy Hawkins
Jeremy Hawkins
For those who didn’t get the chance to sail the worlds, one boat which was noticeably faster when sailing in the stronger winds was Tasar AUS 2830 – Stuart Templeton and Nicole Kidman, they adopted a different style to most of the fleet and were only too pleased to tell me how they achieve an almost effortless increase in upwind performance, most will know from the Tasar manual that its possible to free off upwind but not many have used it to good effect however Stuart and Nic reveal a top tip for 2012.
I used these settings Pacing a 29er upwind at the weekend (I might point out it was my nephew who sails to a good level.) although a little slower there wasn’t much difference which was very surprising, so you might want to practice this if its windy and fairly steady.
Jeremy - “Hi Stuart, I couldn’t help but notice how fast you were going upwind, could you give us some advice on how to achieve this ?”
o Stuart - “Yeah easy. There are 2 main areas here that I think come into play for us which are boat set up and sailing style.
Boat set up – we run a tight rig in windy/wavy conditions as I like to foot off (point low) which means twisting the main off. Without the tight rig we would get a lot of forestay sag and the boat is a nightmare to handle (angle of attack on the jib is all out).
We run loose diamonds as we are a bit heavier. Jib cars are out at least 2 to 3 holes and clew board is the second from the bottom and jib is sheeted out 2 to 3 inches more than normal. Centre board is a deck level, outhaul is fairly tight, vang is strapped and Cunningham is pulled on a bit.
o As I said main is twisted off and traveler is in the middle. Boat set up is the easy part.
Jeremy - “Hi Stuart, I couldn’t help but notice how fast you were going upwind, could you give us some advice on how to achieve this ?”
o Stuart - “Yeah easy. There are 2 main areas here that I think come into play for us which are boat set up and sailing style.
Boat set up – we run a tight rig in windy/wavy conditions as I like to foot off (point low) which means twisting the main off. Without the tight rig we would get a lot of forestay sag and the boat is a nightmare to handle (angle of attack on the jib is all out).
We run loose diamonds as we are a bit heavier. Jib cars are out at least 2 to 3 holes and clew board is the second from the bottom and jib is sheeted out 2 to 3 inches more than normal. Centre board is a deck level, outhaul is fairly tight, vang is strapped and Cunningham is pulled on a bit.
o As I said main is twisted off and traveler is in the middle. Boat set up is the easy part.
Sailing style – The 2 most important areas here I feel are body torque and being able to feel the power in the boat. Body torque is basically using your upper body weight to help the boat though the waves. Eg your legs are locked in but you drop your forward shoulder to go down the back of a wave or you drop your back shoulder to go up a wave. I learnt this sailing lasers in chop. Being able to feel the power in the rig just means you can sail the boat looking upwind and at the waves and not concentrating on the tell tails all the time. It takes a lot of steering in these conditions to sail though the waves. The rudder is not just a steering tool but also an instrument, it will give a lot of feedback about boat set up. I learnt this from sailing 49ers.
Couple of final points - foils are as important as sails, to sail fast you need to have your foils working (same principles as sails with high and low pressure, lift and drag but underwater). Hike hard you need to feel like you’re pushing the boat up with your feet and finally you have to enjoy it.”
Couple of final points - foils are as important as sails, to sail fast you need to have your foils working (same principles as sails with high and low pressure, lift and drag but underwater). Hike hard you need to feel like you’re pushing the boat up with your feet and finally you have to enjoy it.”
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