This story originally appeared in the June issue of Sailing World, June 2010

The day before the first race of the 2009 Melges 32 Gold Cup in Fort Lauderdale, the kick-off to the class’s winter series, it blew 25 knots with big waves. By the first race, the wind dropped to 5 knots, with leftover 2-foot waves coming at 40 degrees to the right of the wind. This made one tack dead into the waves. Each time a boat slammed into a wave, it would then have to reaccelerate. A slight lift or a little more pressure pushed the bow just above the slamming angle and allowed that team to take off. Anyone caught in a light spot or a header stopped dead, as footing meant heading directly into the teeth of the waves.

Most venues don’t have such extreme differences between the wind and wave direction, but it’s not unusual, even on an small, inland lake, for one tack to feel considerably better, or worse, or simply different than the other. On one tack, the waves might be right on the bow, and you’re banging into them—”chopping wood.” On the other tack, the waves are pushing the boat sideways. Clearly, the wind and waves are not aligned, and if your boat is set up identically for both tacks—jib leads in the same place, backstay and sheet tension the same—you’ll be paying a big price in the speed department.

To be fast on both tacks, the most important sail setup considerations are depth and twist. There are other considerations, but these are the two most important ones and the two you can most easily adjust for each tack. I think about it this way: when the waves are not aligned with the wind, you need to set up the sails with more twist and greater depth on one tack.

Stay out of the woodshed

At the Gold Cup that day, port tack was right into the waves, so we set up the sails with twist and a fair amount of depth. If you only let the sheet out to twist the sail, you’ll lose too much power. That’s why we need deeper sails. Think of this as the “wave mode.” Here’s what you can do, from the back of the boat forward.

With the main, you want the clew to be further to windward and the top of the sail a little more open. Start by moving the traveler to windward. Ease the mainsheet a little to open the top of the leech, ease the backstay slightly to add depth to the top two-thirds of the sail, and ease the outhaul to kick the lower battens to windward a little bit and provide slightly more depth down low. On a boat like a J/24, you’re playing the backstay, traveler, and mainsheet—that whole loop—from tack to tack, so you’re always balancing those three controls. If it’s rough, you’re moving the traveler up, easing the backstay a little, and easing the sheet slightly.

If you were observing from behind the boat and looking at the sail, instead of seeing a relatively straight leech, as you would see in smooth water conditions, you’d now see the bottom corner-the clew of the sail-a little further to windward, the top of the leech a little more to leeward, and the middle of the leech in the same spot as it would be with a straight leech. The rougher it is, the more we need to bring to windward the bottom of the leech while opening up the top. Twist the leech off, and then make the sail deeper by easing the backstay, and you’ll have the same amount of power as the flat-water setup except you’ll have a twisted leech profile that will be more forgiving.

Once the main is set, we match the jib shape to that. On the Melges 32, we kicked the jib lead forward an inch or two and eased the jib sheet. Moving the jib lead forward has the same effect on the jib as easing the outhaul has on the main—it adds depth to the bottom of the sail. Easing the jib sheet produced a similar result to moving the main traveler to windward—the top twisted off a little more. The upper jib leech was at about the same spot on the spreaders, maybe a little more open, but there was more overall twist, and the lower leech kicked slightly to windward. That “return” to windward of the bottom part of the jib shoots the wind back into the main a little more. If we can also inhaul a bit, we do that as well.

On the fast tack

After pounding into waves on one tack, the other seemed quiet and fast, so we set the boat up for the 5 knots of wind, but as if the sea state was flat: a straight leech for both the jib and main. Tighten the backstay and pull on a lot of sheet, tightening the leech, and lower the traveler. This is the “flat-water mode.”

Remember, you want to keep the middle of the sail in the same position as when sailing straight into the chop, but close the top leech and straighten the bottom leech so that there is less overall twist. Jib leads on this tack should be at their flat-water position, and you’ll sheet the jib a little harder to straighten the leech so that it matches the leech profile of the mainsail.

Occasionally, you might find the waves coming well to the side of the boat, almost like you’re reaching. In this situation, I carry a little more helm than I would in the flat-water mode because, when the wave hits the bow side-on, the additional helm prevents the waves from pushing the bow to leeward. To do that, sheet the main more than normal but leave the jib alone. So, as waves push the bow down, the entire mainsail leech is working to keep the boat up: the mainsail is fighting for you, and that will keep the boat sailing straight.

How much twist do you need?

For most people, the wave mode is the most challenging. As someone who spent a lot of time near the masthead over the past few years [Horton was regularly perched atop Luna Rossa’s mast in the 32nd America’s Cup challenger trials-Ed.], you think about how much the top of the mast is moving. The masthead fly is an indicator of that. Every time the bow goes down a wave, the top of the mast goes forward and the wind comes more from the bow (see diagram). You’ll see that movement reflected in the direction of the masthead fly.

Then, when the bow comes up and the mast moves aft, the masthead fly will point more to the side. When it’s wavy-and this works on every boat-watch the masthead fly as the boat is sailing upwind. As the boat pitches, the masthead fly will move. If it’s moving a lot, you need lots of depth and twist. If it’s not moving much, you really don’t need much of either.

As I look at the masthead fly moving forward and aft, I try to “freeze-frame” the two extreme positions. I think, “OK, if the wind indicator is all the way back, as in a lift, what would my mainsail look like?” The answer is that it’s like a very close reach, so you’d have the mainsheet eased and a little more depth in the sail.

When the masthead fly is forward, such as when the bow is coming down a wave and the boat appears headed, the sail would ideally be set up with a tighter leech and not much depth. Most boats can’t shift gears that quickly, so think of the sail in thirds. The top portion is the lifted part, when the mast is coming back, the middle is for power, and the bottom is the headed part, when the mast is moving forward. With that setup, part of the sail is always trimmed for the range of wind you’re seeing. The top of the sail is trimmed for the “reach’’ situation, the bottom for the “header situation;’ and the mid-leech for anything in between.

If you hit a wave, stop, and don’t accelerate very quickly, you’re probably not twisting enough. Shift into the wave mode. Another reason to move to the wave mode is when you need to be able to steer to avoid the big waves, but every time you try to put the bow down to accelerate, the boat heels way over. The flat-water setup won’t allow that amount of course variation.

When do you move back to the flat-water setup? As the boat pitches and the apparent wind changes, watch where the sail starts luffing, or breaking up. When the mast moves forward and your sail breaks up just at the top, then it’s probably too full and too twisted. And if you’re fighting to keep the boat on track because of waves coming from the side, it’s time for the flat-water mode. As a rule of thumb, I try to set up the sails with the least amount of twist that I can get away with. I’m not going to go out with a flat-water setting if it’s blowing 20 knots with waves on the bow. Inevitably, what will happen when you twist too much is that you won’t point as high. If you’re looking at photos, a good indicator that you’re twisting too much is that the middle leech has moved to leeward. This is tough to see from onboard.

When you’re two-boat testing before a race, and you’re sailing on the tack that takes you more into the waves, be sure to give it some time. Waves really affect boatspeed. You can’t just sail for 30 seconds and say, “We’re faster than that guy” or “We’re slower than that guy.” One bad wave will stop you, and one bad wave will stop the other boat. You have to go through that whole cycle of stopping, accelerating up to speed, and pointing a few times to figure out who’s actually set up correctly.

Keep in mind the two modes and how to get there. Always add depth when you’re twisting the sails. And remember, both sails work in harmony. If you adjust one, you should definitely be adjusting the other.

The post Gear Shifting for Waves appeared first on Sailing World.

Editor’s Note: Ed Adams was Senior Editor At Large for Sailing World. His story “A New Angle on Speed” was originally published in the January 1996 issue of Sailing World.

Bob Johnstone was surprised by what we learned. I wasn’t. After years of sailing “chuteless” small boats like Snipes and Stars, I knew that racing with a whisker pole was not as straightforward as it appeared. So, when we set out to test angles, speeds and PHRF sail-trim techniques onboard Johnstone’s J/42 Gannet, I was sure the results would be enlightening.

Our conclusions were put to another test one week later when Gannet entered the New York YC Chesapeake Cruise. The second race was typical. While most of the cruising canvas fleet ran wing-and-wing, limping along at a snail’s pace in 5 to 8 knots of wind, Johnstone took a different track. Instead of poling his genoa out to windward, he poled it out to leeward and reached up, sailing faster angles and jibing downwind. Gannet won the race by over 7 minutes. In fact, Gannet won all of the races, some by as much as 17 minutes.

Coming from a lifetime of sailing with spinnakers, Johnstone learned that sailing with a whisker pole can be just as much of a tactical challenge. And when done with the same attention you might give a spinnaker, the difference in performance can be astounding. You don’t need an army of crew to go fast with a whisker pole; all you need to know is which course to steer and how to trim the sails.

The Ideal Whisker Pole

The pole you’d like to use is not the same pole you’re allowed to use. The ideal pole would be of infinitely adjustable length. PHRF rating penalties, however, restrict pole length to that of a boat’s J dimension (the distance between the mast and forestay tack). This is done so that a standard spinnaker pole can double as a whisker pole.

Why is it fast to have a long, adjustable whisker pole? Take a look at how a non-spinnaker boat performs at various angles to the wind. First, picture a boat running dead downwind. At this angle, a standard-length pole is adequate for sailing with a 150-percent genoa. With the pole squared aft for running (see photo, left), the foot of the genoa is stretched just tight enough to project plenty of sail area to the wind.

Now head up onto a broad reach. As you head up, the pole must be eased forward, or the wind will get behind the leech of the genoa and cause the sail to collapse. But as the pole is eased forward, the tension on the foot relaxes, and the lower half of the sail balloons, becoming full and inefficient. As it balloons, projected area is lost.

The pole also tends to lift as it is eased forward. This eases the leech of the genoa, letting the upper portion of the sail twist out in front of the boat. Attaching the foreguy to hold the pole down, or moving the sheet lead forward, corrects over-twisting. But you’re still left with inadequate foot tension.

There are only two ways to keep the foot stretched tight as the pole is eased forward: either lengthen the pole or shorten the foot. As you would expect, lengthening the pole is preferable. If the pole could be extended to twice the length of J, you could nearly beam reach. With the sails set wing-and-wing, a pole that is 1.5 times the J dimension would still provide markedly improved speed at most reaching angles.

It’s too bad that PHRF hits you with a nasty penalty for a long pole. Since this leaves you stuck with a standard-length pole, the other option is to shorten the foot of the genoa when reaching wing-and-wing. As the pole is eased forward, a smaller genoa of full hoist would, theoretically, be faster despite what you might think. A smaller overlap wouldn’t project less area, as projection is controlled by pole length; it would present a more efficient and less ballooned shape.

In our test, we tried roller reefing the genoa to 130 percent when reaching wing-and-wing. It didn’t prove to be an advantage because we lost too much sail area in the head of the sail. The foot trimmed correctly, but the sail area aloft was simply too small — to make a smaller sail efficient at tighter angles, the sail would have to be full hoist.

In practical terms, a shorthanded, cruising canvas crew will not be able to douse and change genoas with every wind shift. They have to deal with one 150-percent sail and one undersized fixed-length pole. Hence, they also have to learn how to deal with sailing in the “dead zone.”

Dodging the Dead Zone

When sailing with a spinnaker, it never pays to aim the boat dead downwind. That’s because the boat sails so much faster when you head up. For every degree the boat turns toward a reach, the boatspeed climbs. It climbs so fast that it pays to reach back-and-forth, sailing a zig-zag jibing course toward the leeward mark. The angle chosen depends on how windy it is. But one thing holds true: the higher you sail with the spinnaker, the faster you go.

This axiom doesn’t hold for sailing with cruising canvas and a standard PHRF whisker pole. Imagine sailing on a close reach: On this point of sail, both the main sail and genoa are full and drawing with maximum pressure. Now bear off onto a beam reach. As you bear off, the leech of the genoa will fall into the wind shadow of the mainsail. The main will still draw hard, but the pressure on the genoa well soften. At this point, the wind angle is too far forward to set a standard whisker pole.

Now bear off another 15 degrees: As you do, more of the genoa becomes blanketed. Continue to head down and the genoa will eventually hang limp, with little wind hitting the luff, and this being inadequate to lift the clue (see inset photo). When this happens, you have entered the dead zone.

On this point of sail, the genoa can be filled to weather with a whisker pole. While this is faster than letting the genoa hang limp to leeward, the wind is still too far forward for the sail to fly efficiently with a short, PHRF-mandated pole.

If you bear off even further, and the whisker pole is squared, sail shape improves and the boatspeed improves. This is where sailing with cruising canvas differs from sailing with a spinnaker. As you bear off with a spinnaker, the boatspeed always drops. With a whisker pole, as you bear away from the dead zone, boatspeed climbs initially. Then, when approaching dead downwind, the speed begins to fall off again. When expressed as a “polar curve,” which plots a boat’s potential speed against its sailing angle, the dead zone appears as a hump in the curve, a point where the boat is unnaturally low on a reach (see illustration).

Let’s say you round the weather mark and set off toward the reach mark. If the course to the reach mark is in the dead zone, there are two choices: You could sail straight toward the reach mark with a whisker pole set. The genoa would balloon inefficiently because the pole is too short. The boat wouldn’t be going particularly fast, but at least it would be sailing straight line, which is the shortest course.

Alternatively, you could set the jib to leeward and reach up above the course to the mark, sailing a faster angle. Then, when positioned well to weather of the rhumbline, you could bear off and sail wing-and-wing on a broad reach to the mark at an equally fast angle. By sailing a longer distance, the dead zone is avoided. But does the extra speed make up for the extra distance? That was one of the primary questions answered in our test.

Here’s What We Learned

To chart the territory in and around the dead zone, we spent a day recording Gannet’s boatspeed at various sailing angles and with a variety of sail-trim configurations. After averaging and plotting the data, we came up with a number of conclusions. Some were surprising, like the advantage of poling the genoa out to leeward. Others were more predictable such as, when reaching wing-and-wing, roller furling the genoa doesn’t pay.

To make the lessons from the test easier to apply to real-life situations, here are some rules of thumb to follow.

Try the Pole to Leeward

When tight reaching, most sailors know that it’s fast to move the genoa sheet lead forward and outboard to the leeward rail. After bearing off further, toward a beam reach, flat-out raceboats throw up the spinnaker; they need an alternative to maintain speed. When the apparent-wind angle is aft of 80 degrees, that alternative is to pole the genoa out to leeward.

This technique works with a 150-percent genoa from apparent wind angles of 80 to 120 degrees. The pole holds the clew of the sail outboard, away from the blanket of the mainsail by tensioning the foreguy, the pole acts a vang to control genoa leech tension; but be careful not to over-vang—you don’t want the pole to drag in the water when the boat heels in a big puff.

The foreguy should be adjusted so the sail breaks evenly from head to tack as the sheet at ease. Tensioning the foreguy has an effect similar to moving the genoa lead forward: If the sail is breaking earlier at the head, tensioning, the foreguy will correct it. This setup produces far more power than “free flying” the sail without a pole in the lee of the mainsail.

At apparent wind angles of 100 to 120 degrees, the pole should be set to leeward at full length. At angles of 80 to 100 degrees, a standard pole is too long to trim the sail properly. The foot of the genoa becomes strapped when the sail is sheeted in. The solution is to shorten the effective length of the pole. Tie a loop of line through the clue of the jib, and clip the pole to the loop. Adjust the length of the loop so as to shorten the effective length of the pole 1 to 2 feet. Then, as you trim the sail, the foot will stay full enough for adequate power. (See photo beam reaching: 90 degrees apparent)

Avoid the Dead Zone

The dead zone is the reaching angle at which the genoa won’t fly properly whether it’s poled out to weather or to leeward. In the dead zone, your boatspeed suffers no matter what you try.

For boats with a 150-percent genoa and a standard pole, the dead zone should occur at apparent wind angles of 120 to 135 degrees. It can be found by poling the genoa out to leeward on a beam reach, then slowly bearing off until the sail begins to go limp. If you try to sail wing-and-wing at this angle, the pole will have to be set so far forward that the foot of the genoa will be unnaturally full.

When faced with a leg lying at an angle in this dead zone, don’t sail straight at the mark. Instead, reach high of the rhumbline, at an angle of 110 degrees, but the poled denoa lower. Then, when the bearing to the mark is such that you can fetch it at an apparent wind angle of 135 degrees, bear off and reset the pole to windward. The exception to this would be in extremely light air, when you should continue at 110 degrees until the mark could be fetched at a 110-degree angle on the opposite jibe. When this point is reached, jibe for the mark and reset the pole to leeward on the opposite jibe.

Don’t Sail Dead Downwind

Just like sailing with a spinnaker, it rarely pays to sail dead down, wind with cruising canvas, even on a leg, which is a dead run. By heading up a certain amount, your boat speed climbs to a point where it will pay to jibe back-and-forth to a lower mark. This is called “sailing to polars,” a concept that most spinnaker trimmers recognize. The proper polar angle depends on the wind strength and your particular boat. However, the angles we discovered for Gannet should be similar for any boat with a 150-percent genoa and a standard-length whisker pole.

No matter what the boat, the lighter the wind, the higher the proper sailing angle will be. And remember, always avoid sailing in the dead zone. In winds under 8 knots, pole the jib out to leeward to sail above the dead zone, maintaining an apparent-wind angle of 100 to 110 degrees. When the wind reaches 8 knots, then it’s time to go wing-on-wing, sailing at an apparent wind angle of 140 degrees, or just below the dead zone. As the wind builds you must sail lower and lower for optimum angle. At 12 knots, the apparent wind angle is about 150 degrees. In 15 knots, it’s 160 degrees, and at 18 knots, it’s 170 degrees. Only in winds of 20 knots or more should you sail dead downwind.

As you can see, there’s more to cruising canvas racing that meets the eye. So, the next time the competition throws up the whisker pole and settles back with a cold brew, ask yourself: “Is this the best angle to keep the boat moving? Am I in the dead zone?” And, “I wonder how that beer will sit if I roll over them with my jib polled out to leeward!”

The post A New Angle on Speed: Poling the Headsail appeared first on Sailing World.

Many one-design classes, and some bigger boats, are fortunate to have convenient guides to help get the jib trimmed properly and consistently. Some of us use tape marks on our spreaders or marks on our splash rails and jib sheets so we have a ballpark placement for sheet tension after every tack.

While these guides do help us achieve our initial sheet trim quickly, they don’t necessarily key on the trim points that matter the most. Our leech telltales are really what we should be paying attention to most.

What exactly are leech telltales telling us? On the mainsail, the top telltale is telling us that the flow off the leech is fair and even off both sides of the sail. Often (depending on the boat and conditions) the mainsail will be trimmed hard enough so that the top telltale will be stalled when the boat is set up in “point mode.”  Jib trim, on the other hand, is rarely set up with anything other than constant flow on those telltales.

Our jib leech telltales provide us with a gauge on how the wind is flowing through the all-important “slot,” the open area between the mainsail and jib. When the slot is too narrow the telltales will stall. Oftentimes, there will be backwind in the main, a bubble at the luff area of the main is an indication that the slot is too narrow. While jib sheet tension has the greatest effect on the slot and the jib leech telltale flow, other trim adjustments can be contributing factors as well.

“Using your jib telltales to check what’s happening in the slot will help you maintain the right balance between the main and jib, often resulting in the boat and helm being perfectly balanced.”

For example, if the main is eased in a set of waves, or in a gust when the traveler is eased to leeward, the slot will be narrowed and the telltales will stall, dictating that an ease on the jib sheet is necessary. An inhauler jib-system, or weather sheeting will also impact flow through the slot. Using your jib telltales to check what’s happening in the slot will help you maintain the right balance between the main and jib, often resulting in the boat and helm being perfectly balanced.

Many jibs these days come from the sailmaker with at least one telltale attached to the leech at the top batten. If the jib doesn’t have battens, ideally the top-most telltale would be placed about 25 to 30 percent down the leech. These telltales provide the most consistent guide for sheet trim across all conditions, and the goal is to have your telltales flowing straight off the leech most of the time. If the boat feels sluggish, bound-up or slow, take a quick look at the leech telltales for a reality check because it can be very easy to over trim, especially in light winds. If you have a mainsail window that allows you to see the top jib telltale, consider that your window to boatspeed.

With the jib leech telltales (not to be confused with the luff telltales that help provide the guide to steering in “the groove”) the process is to trim the jib sheet until the telltales just start to stall and then ease the sheet until they just flow. In flat water and 8 to 10 knots of breeze, you can trim a touch harder and have the leech telltales just on the edge of stalling. But when you’re in this mode, be extra careful the stall doesn’t go from the edge to off the cliff. 

Often, we place two to three telltales on the leech, spaced 6 inches apart, and when sailing in ideal conditions, with the perfect trim on the edge, the lowest telltale of the top two or three will start to stall while the top still maintains a flow. When it’s windy, light or shifty and acceleration is key, avoid ever letting the telltales stall.

Another cause of jib-leech telltale stall may be that the mainsail is set up a touch too full, or the mainsail draft is too far forward. Stalled jib-leech telltales will provide that intel. Solutions to opening the slot could be applying more backstay or vang or easing the cunningham. A loose jib halyard could be a culprit as well, as a softer halyard tension allows the draft to move aft in the jib, rounding the leech and narrowing the slot.

Perhaps in stronger winds, when the boat is overpowered and the mainsail is to set to leeward to help balance the boat (i.e., a low traveler), it may be nearly impossible to maintain telltale flow off the upper leech. Moving the jib lead aft, if possible, may help open up the leech, and the slot, and allow better flow.

The post Use Your Jib Leech Telltales For Perfect Trim appeared first on Sailing World.

The phone rings with an incoming WhatsApp call from Stuart Bannatyne. I’m at my desk at Google, so I jog to a conference room to have a private conversation. Bannatyne, from Doyle Sails, is a legend in the sailing world—and that’s no hyperbole. When it comes to leading successful grand-prix race programs, there’s nobody better. He cuts straight to the chase: “Lewy, you interested in going racing?”

“Yeah, Stu,” I answer. “Always interested to hear what you have on the boil.” 

He’s got a new program shaping up for the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race, a TP52 named Summer Storm, a boat with a solid winning record and a new owner in Andrew Berdon. My excitement is building, but I keep my cool while mentally running through the checklist of elements needed for a ­successful program.

My next questions are about the sails and the crew. Bannatyne rattles off from memory every sail that the boat will come with and what new sails we will need to be competitive. The crew are not only top-shelf sailors, but most of them won line honors and the corrected win in the Gibbs Hill Division with us in the previous Bermuda Race (Richard Clarke, Mal Parker, Chris Welch, Dylan Vogel and David Gilmour) as well. That’s all I need to hear, and I give Bannatyne an emphatic “I’m in!”

A few days later, a FedEx package arrives at my door from boat captain Alec Snyder, and my daughter asks, “What’s in it?”

“It’s a present from the new boat,” I tell her.

“Is it a puppy?” she asks.

“No—it’s even better. It’s the boat’s computer, and now I can start digging into the polars and sail charts.”

We all know that polars and sail charts matter. That’s why we have them laminated and mounted in the cockpit of our race boat. One chart tells us our target speeds and angles (which are derived from polars), and the other tells us which sails we should have up.

Understanding these two crucial pieces of information can be the difference between a podium finish and a participation award. We’ve been using them for a long time, and much has been written about how to use them, but today the importance of understanding a boat’s polars has added significance with the adoption of the new Forecast Time Correction Factor rating system.

Iconic ocean races such as the Transpac and the Bermuda Race recently announced that they will use the new F-TCF system to calculate race results, which will rely on meticulously calculated polars using a velocity-prediction program. This new scoring adaptation underscores the necessity for skippers and crews to have an even deeper grasp of their boat’s sail plan and polars. No matter what boat you’re racing this year or next, your first priority in preparation should be refining your polars and sail charts.

Digging for Oil

My technologist neighbors in Silicon Valley celebrate the principle that “data is the new oil,” and this is true in sailing as well. Nowadays, it’s easy to collect treasure troves of data from every sensor on the boat. With the powerful navigation tools at our disposal, it’s easier than ever to take our polars, which forecast a boat’s performance at every wind angle and every wind strength, and crunch them with accurate weather files and racecourse mark information to produce optimal routing. We can also repeat polars to our displays, in real-time, with target speed and angles as well as polar boatspeed percentages. With this level of ­functionality accessible to virtually every boat, it’s fair to say that polars are more important than ever. 

Gone are the days where a professional sailor could eyeball a headsail and make some profound-sounding ­recommendation that no one could challenge because of their years of experience and enviable track record (even if the comment was just an assertive hunch). With today’s tools, BS is replaced with real science. Remember the scientific method you learned in high school? It still matters, and we now have the tools to ­confidently test whether A is faster than B. Unsure whether the J1, J2 or jib top would be faster at a deeper true-wind angle? Well, test it. That’s science, sailing’s new “moneyball,” which ­translates into speed. 

Granted, while all this new ­science might be easy for top-end navigators, it can be daunting for amateur programs to take a data-based approach to performance improvement. But it’s absolutely possible. The crux of sailing moneyball is to make use of your log files and process them into analyzable and actionable data. Thankfully, Expedition—the gold standard of navigational software—has this functionality built in, and so do other analytics platforms. Without the tools to notate and process log data, all you have is a pile of files on memory sticks, which do you no good. If you want oil, you have to go digging.

Once you have the ability to analyze your data (and there are plenty of webinars and seminars to get you there), the next big hurdle is determining your data quality or data hygiene. In this category, the first two considerations are instrument calibration and data labeling. Instrument calibration is probably the most obvious.

Science demands that if you are comparing boatspeeds, then your boatspeed calibration needs to be spot-on for both. That’s also true of your wind calibration. You can’t compare apples, oranges and ducks. Data labeling is not obvious at first, but there are fundamental best practices: keeping track of when you were racing and when you were just motoring around between races (imagine how good your light-wind polars would look if you had your iron jib helping); logging which sails you had up and when; and keeping accurate real-time notes, like when you might be in the sweet spot of a sail, for example. You have to be meticulous and disciplined with your data-collection practices, even while you are doing your primary sailing jobs. Make it a priority.

A few examples of ­next-level considerations would be noting wind shear (which is especially noticeable on cold mornings where there’s 8 knots at the masthead and nothing on water), boat weight and balance (don’t compare numbers with a laden boat prepared to go to Hawaii versus a light boat set up for daysailing), and variables such as who was driving and when. Good science is about eliminating variables so that you see the signal, not the noise. 

Speed Is in the Percentage 

My personal catchphrase is “speed is all about finding 2 ­percent” (even though it could be a bigger or smaller percentage). Imagine a beautiful sunny day where you have flat seas and 12 knots of well-mixed wind. On such a day, we’ll have a wish list of things we want tested, and high on the ­priority list might be the edges of a sail’s coverage. For example, how deep can we sail on the J1 or J2 before performance percentages plummet versus how high can we sail a reaching sail?

In order to find out, we sail in the same direction with the J1 at 80 degrees true-wind angle for 3 minutes. Then, we drop the sail and ­continue with the J2 at exactly the same true-wind angle for the same 3 minutes. Finally, we do the same with the jib top. Assuming that the wind conditions don’t change during this window, each test will produce a polar boatspeed percentage; imagine the results are that the jib top is 97.2 percent, the J2 is 95.1 percent, and the J1 is 94.8 percent. We have the answer of which is faster in exactly those conditions and we found our 2 percent.

Once decisions are made about which sails to bring for the race, you also have to figure out the best ways to fill any gaps in your sail plan with other sails you are taking.

The reality, however, is that not all of your tests will be perfect, so scientific excellence would dictate that you’ll want more testing data points to prove any conclusion by ­repeatability. Once you’ve successfully proved something, you can nudge the potato shape of the sail chart to implement what you’ve learned. Now imagine doing that for every square of your sail-chart grid by building out an entire database of carefully curated data points from racing and testing conditions. You’d be 2 ­percent faster all the time and you’d be able to dial-in polars with high quality data. It burns me up to imagine that during a race, I might be sailing 2 percent slower for hours by having the wrong sail up in a distance race.

The reality is that even the most sophisticated grand-prix programs can’t test everything, so apply judgment to your own resources and prioritizing tests for what matters most. The same methodologies can be used to test anything—rake settings, staysails, rudder, outrigger, water ballast, etc. The list is limited only by your curiosity.

Pre-race Sail Optimization

While much has been written about how polars and sail charts are used while you are racing, they also play an important role before crossing the starting line, or even before locking in your rating certificate. While your boat weight and design might not change much, your declared sail selection can have a significant impact on your polars. The first step in optimizing your sail quiver is typically consulting your sailmaker, but if you want to level up, there are consultants who can help run and analyze trial certificates to help find advantages.

Sail optimization is ­essentially the science of trying to find ideal sail combinations for the course and your particular boat—combinations that allow you to sail faster than the rating agency’s VPP predicts you can. Said differently (and perhaps more traditionally), you are looking for sail combinations that are favored, or have a sweet spot under a rule, while avoiding sails that are punished disproportionately.

I like to look at the delta in each cell of the polar table to see how a particular sail will change the predicted polar speed. Then the game is to decide whether actual performance exceeds or misses the predicted changes, so you can then decide whether a particular sail is worthwhile from a ratings perspective.

Once decisions are made about which sails to bring for the race, you also have to ­figure out the best ways to fill any gaps in your sail plan with other sails you are taking. Of course, the best way to do that is sail testing, using the very same methodologies ­previously ­discussed to determine the answer to each question with cold, hard data instead of speculation. 

Whether you’re racing for a local trophy or tackling an iconic offshore challenge, ­understanding polars and sail charts is the key to ­achieving the highest level of performance in which your boat is capable. Trophies are there for the taking for those with ­insatiable curiosity for ­unlocking the secrets to speed in their boats.

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Walk the docks of an ORC regatta, a one-design championship, or even a beer-can race and you will notice how many boats are now equipped with some version of a floating headsail lead. With the broadened range of lead positioning available and the ability to make fine adjustments, knowledgeable trimmers can contribute substantial performance gains to any boat they step onto. Understanding the proper balance of foot depth and leech twist to achieve target performance numbers is, of course, the first step toward accessing these new gears. But knowing when to stray from the perfect setup in order to power through asymmetric chop, hold a tight lane off the start line, split low and fast out of a crowded leeward mark, or extend from a closely trailing boat on the offset leg will set you apart from the crowd of average trimmers. Let’s take a look at each axis of lead positioning and its effect on the sail.

Fore and aft: Optimizing the longitudinal jib-lead position

Fore and aft movement of the lead position primarily controls foot depth. Moving the lead forward will increase depth in the lower part of the sail, while moving it aft will flatten it. The side effect of this movement is leech twist control. As the foot gets fuller, the leech becomes straighter and more closed at the top of the sail. As the foot gets flatter, the leech becomes more twisted. This has historically been the most common axis for adjustment because, in a basic sense, both flattening the foot and twisting the leech are methods of depowering the sail. When we factor in the nuances of sea state, vertical wind shear, tolerances of groove width, and efficient mode shifting, longitudinal control alone limits the versatility of our headsail.

Inboard and outboard: Optimizing the athwartships jib-lead position

Controlling the athwartships position of the lead is typically referred to as inhauling. Moving the lead inboard narrows the angle of attack. All else equal, this means the boat must point higher in order for the wind to view the headsail the same way as it was before being inhauled. The major limitation here is when the slot between the headsail and mainsail becomes too narrow and the flow coming off the jib inverts the front of the mainsail.

The goal of setting the athwartships lead position is to set the jib leech close enough to the main that it compresses and accelerates the wind between the two sails and forces the flow over the back of the main to remain attached farther aft than it would otherwise, but not so narrow that it bubbles the front of the main and creates an unreasonably thin groove for the driver. When I decide where to set the inhauler, I typically check for just a touch of visual feedback (light fluttering) in the main luff and communicate with the driver about how easy it is to keep the boat tracking well. In a lumpy sea state, for example, the driver will need a wider angle of attack in order to have adequate freedom to maneuver through the waves.

Up and down: Optimizing the vertical jib-lead position

The up and down control of your lead position can be seen as having a similar effect as the fore and aft control does. However, changing the up and down position has a more direct effect on the leech twist and a more indirect effect on foot depth. As headsails have become higher-aspect, having more precise control of the leech twist has become increasingly important. This is likely why vertical lead adjustment has been added to many boats or replaced the longitudinal adjustment altogether.

Now that we understand the impact of each control axis, how do we find the sweet spot for our floating jib lead at any given moment? A good starting point is to follow the classic guidance of achieving an evenly breaking luff. The jib clew should be low enough that the luff telltales at the head aren’t breaking drastically earlier than the ones closer to the foot are, but not so low that the upper leech telltales are stalling from too little twist.

The clew should be far enough forward that there is enough power in the foot to achieve target speeds at upwind polar angles, but not so far forward that the depth induces too much drag and the upper leech is, once again, stalling. The clew should be inboard enough to maximize upwind pointing ability, but not so far inboard that it overly compresses flow through the slot, disturbing the luff of the main. 

Of course, we don’t have the luxury of each adjustment functioning in isolation. We must also understand how each control impacts the complete setup and how to correct unwanted impacts. Inhauling the jib can also increase the foot depth, so to achieve a narrower angle of attack without creating unwanted drag, we must move the lead up, shift the lead back, or pull the sheet on harder. Easing the lead up can allow the clew to fall to leeward, so we can inhaul more to bring the angle of attack back to where it was. Because of this interconnected relationship between the floating lead control lines, it can be difficult to make reliable marks and repeat settings precisely. This means trimmers need to be overly discerning when it comes to the proper look of the jib. We need to check in regularly on the luff telltales, leech telltales, and feedback in the main to visualize the flow over our sail. 

Adding one more layer to the puzzle of determining jib-lead setup is input from the tactician. Aside from the methods outlined above for achieving efficient upwind trim, floating jib leads are also beneficial to short-term mode shifts. For example, if there is a tactical call for a high mode off the start line to clear or protect a good lane, the headsail trimmer should inhaul the jib as the main trimmer moves the traveler up. The groove will be narrow and speed will suffer slightly, but when done efficiently, the task can be completed quickly before transitioning right back to the best VMG mode. When sailing off the wind, the floating lead allows for much greater ability to keep the sail trimmed properly without requiring flattening sheets or outboard leads.

A good trimmer knows how to make their jib look nice and perform well. A great trimmer will cross-reference their settings with the main trim, helm balance and tactical mode to increase the performance of the entire system.

The post Headsail Trim Tips For Floating Leads appeared first on Sailing World.

Precise and active sail trim is the final-percentage difference in maximizing your boatspeed advantage on the racecourse. Harken’s new Zircon range of blocks use a ceramic race and ceramic ball bearings to achieve a better feel for a light-air trim and heavy-air efficiency. This is a true trimmer’s block, says Matt Schmidt, of Harken Inc., the global leader in performance sailboat hardware. After months of R&D, world champion sailor Ravi Parent confirms his Zircons make him faster and shares how he integrates Zircon blocks into the precision sail-trim systems of his high-performance crafts. For more information about the Zircon blocks, visit harken.com/zircon.

About Harken

The real fuel behind a company’s success is its people.

Peter and Olaf Harken recognized this basic business principle over 50 years ago when starting Harken/Vanguard in the snow and corn country of southeastern Wisconsin. Since those early days, Harken has grown from a backyard dream of two brothers to a global reality with offices and distributors around the world. Harken gear dominates events like the America’s Cup, the Ocean Race, the Maxi Worlds, Super Yacht events worldwide, the Olympics and one-design championships everywhere, with blocks, travelers, deck hardware, winches, and hydraulics.

The Harken story has been full of twists, turns, successes, and reinventions, but through it all the goal of challenging the status quo and commitment to excellence has always remained the same.

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Triple-headed sail ­inventories are becoming more popular these days, but the question is, does this setup actually make your boat go faster or simply add more complexity? I remember not too many years ago during a race when someone suggested we hoist the staysail and see if we picked up half a knot of boatspeed. We did, and then after a while everyone was convinced we should take the staysail down. We did, and what do you know? We picked up half a knot. At the time, I guess we really didn’t have the right answer, but we sure had a lot of opinions. Fortunately, with today’s technology we have data to back up what sail ­selection is fastest.

Last year, the team on Andrew Clark’s J/122 Zig Zag wanted to develop a sail inventory specifically for the Newport Bermuda Race. Clark reached out to me, looking for a sail package that would give Zig Zag the best solution to win. Throwing a bunch of sails at the problem wasn’t the solution because there are many factors that can influence the decision on the ideal sail inventory—rating rules, anticipated wind conditions, number of sails and weight.

The first thing we did was look at the historical conditions of the Bermuda Race and determine the percentages we would spend sailing at each wind angle and wind strength. Typically, the Bermuda Race is slightly lighter, with a lot of conditions changing as you enter the Gulf Stream. This told us we had to make sure we had all our bases covered.

The second element we looked at was the number of sails and the total weight of the inventory. If we can reduce the number of sail changes during a race, the less time we can spend sailing below target speeds. Sail changes are costly, and if there is a chance to reduce the number of changes without giving up performance, that needs to be factored into the equation.

The third element is the rating rule. Every rule is different, and special attention needs to be taken to evaluate sail size and the type of sail entered for the certificate. Some rating rules allow you to submit a test certificate to see how the changes affect the rating.

The last element is the quiver of sails that will make up the inventory and be applied to the rating certificate. This step is where the project team looks at everything, weighs the pros and cons, and comes up with a solid inventory of sails that it can then use to build a polar chart specific to the J/122 and the selected set of sails.

After a sail-configuration analysis, the team at Evolution Sails recommended a triple-headed reaching setup that would increase reaching speeds based on the current sail configuration Zig Zag was already using. The triple-headed setup includes a J Zero, jib and gennaker staysail. The J Zero is designed to be a smaller and flatter sail than the traditional larger Code Zero. It’s flown off the bowsprit with a furler and is also referred to as a flying jib. The gennaker staysail is a flat and smaller sail that fits in between the jib and the mast. With the J Zero deployed on the bow pole, the jib can be flown off the forestay as it always is, and then the gennaker staysail is set up between the forestay and mast trimmed inside the jib.

This setup improves the performance better than the traditional inventory options. What we found in previous sail inventories is that tight-­reaching configurations consisted of a jib and a gennaker staysail. An additional sail that was historically designed for reaching was the Jib Top, which is a high-clew jib that can be trimmed easier on a reach than a standard jib.

Once the sails were designed, built and delivered, the hard work of sail testing began. The goal here was to build a polar table and sail chart that would guide us through which sail we should have up in specific ­conditions. Polars are calculated speed versus wind angles that take sail inventory into consideration and can be found from the manufacturer for most boats. What the manufactured polars don’t consider, however, is the sail inventory itself.

The best way to create polars, of course, is by sailing the boat with the sail configurations. Zig Zag uses Expedition software to log actual performance versus the calculated polars the design team compiled. We were able to correct the performance of each sail and configuration, and edit the tables in Expedition to help guide us through the race. We then updated the polars and created a sail chart that showed which sail should be used based on specific wind angles and windspeeds. This process takes time and practice. You need to sail the boat in many sail configurations at each wind angle to find the ideal setup. Zig Zag did several practice days with the triple-headed arrangement in order to log the speed performance versus other configurations.

Expedition software is one of the best sailing software tools on the market. It does an unbelievable job with navigating, but it also helps develop the polars and sail configurations. To have good data from Expedition, however, the electronics on the boat must be calibrated properly. This is the most difficult part of the equation because it is very complex to get accurate. If the data that feeds Expedition is not accurate, the sail and polar analysis will not be accurate. Having a dedicated person who knows the instruments and can calibrate them on an ongoing basis is a key element to have a successful program. With accurate data and a lot of sail testing, Expedition creates data files called strip files. These files contain the data to analyze and also can be sent to a third-party analyst to do the comparison.

Once we were ready to race with an Expedition update and the forecast in hand, we could see which sails we were projected to use throughout the race. This gave us an overall idea of when sail changes needed to happen and which sails we would be looking at using next based on the forecasted wind models.

How do we configure the foredeck to handle all these sails? The pole length is fixed and the forestay is fixed, so those two points are easy. The location for the gennaker staysail forestay is what we needed to figure out. When we looked at the J/122, we needed a mast attachment point and a deck point. We wanted to set the gennaker staysail forestay about two-thirds forward between the forestay and mast, which would allow it to fit between the jib and mainsail, with the leech of the sail just touching the lower shroud.

Once we found that point, we added a soft-shackle attachment point into the deck and an attachment point on the mast near the top set of spreaders.

With all three flying, the jib could be trimmed off a barber-hauler sheet and the primary jib sheet depending on the wind angle. The J Zero is trimmed to an outboard sheet, and the gennaker staysail is trimmed to a cabin-top attachment point that we installed on top of the turning blocks, which gave it the right trimming angle. For different types of boats, you will need to sit down with the sail design team and look at all these issues to be able to design the gennaker staysail and J Zero to fit and be trimmed properly.

Going to the triple-headed sail configuration helped the Zig Zag team improve the overall performance of the boat based on the data analysis. For future races and practices, we will continue to evaluate and tune the numbers to help improve the overall base-line polars. This is an iterative process, and it’s what makes sailboat racing so dynamic and a huge passion for many people. And as for the Bermuda Race results? Team Zig Zag finished first in its division and second overall.

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Headstay Tension

Let’s start with headstay sag, which creates power in the headsail. In light air, a softer headstay powers up the sail by making it fuller. When it’s windy, a tighter headstay reduces power as it pulls draft out of the sail. And then there’s everything between those extremes. There are three primary ways to affect headstay sag—backstay, rig tension and mainsheet tension. The backstay is the most effective and often easiest to adjust of the three. An added bonus is the backstay also bends the mast, flattening the main. This helps keep the boat well-balanced. As puffs and lulls affect the sail plan, the backstay keeps both sails powered or depowered together.

The second option, for boats with aft-swept spreaders, is rig tension. By tightening the shrouds, you increase ­tension on the forestay. Generally speaking, given a fixed amount of backstay tension, tightening the shrouds creates more headstay tension. This is helpful if the mainsail is already flat and you don’t want to add more backstay, which might invert the main. Definitely check with your spar manufacturer or one-design guide about maximum shroud tension because it can add a lot of compression and load to the mast. Loosening the shrouds has the opposite effect, adding headstay sag.

The third option, mainly for smaller boats, is mainsheet tension. While its effect is different from boat to boat, mainsheet tension tightens or loosens the leech of the main, which in turn acts like a backstay—more mainsheet tension, more leech tension, less headstay sag.

As the headstay sags, draft gets deeper and moves forward because the sagging headstay puts shape in the front of the jib first. While a slightly deeper jib or genoa is often faster in light air, extreme forward draft is often not the solution when you need power. Enter halyard tension. As you sag the ­headstay, ease halyard tension, and the draft will shift aft. As you tension the headstay, pull the draft forward by ­tightening the halyard.

Until the boat is under­powered, headstay sag helps the boat point higher. That is in part due to the angle of attack. Imagine a straight line drawn halfway up the sail from luff to leech. As you sail upwind with a tight headstay, that line is, for example, 20 degrees off centerline to your boat. The wind flows over the boat and the sails are happy at this hypothetical position. As you sag the forestay, the front of the sail moves to leeward. That same imaginary line is now 15 degrees off centerline. Without factoring in other variables, your boat can now head up 5 degrees to keep the sail at the same angle to the wind.

While different boats seem to handle headstay sag differently, there are some common ways to determine if it is too much or too little. When it is windy and the boat is overpowered, too much sag can result in a lack of pointing. The jib is full because of the sag, and that pulls the bow to leeward. To make matters worse, if overpowered, the mainsail trimmer has likely depowered the mainsail. This compounds the problem of the sideways pull on the sail plan. A great coach of mine would often refer to this as “front loading” (or “back loading”) the sail plan. If you are front-loaded (powerful jib and depowered main), the boat will sail a little sideways upwind, resulting in lack of pointing. Lee helm is a sign of this.

Another key visual of ­excessive headstay sag is when the leech of the jib or genoa “returns,” or angles to windward, up into the mainsail. Trimming the leech close to parallel to the boat’s centerline is often fastest until it is very windy. If the leech returns into the back of the mainsail, it could be a sign that the headstay needs to be tightened. If the leech still returns into the back of the main after the headstay is visually tight, ease the sheet or move the lead aft. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you’re too tight on the forestay, the boat will feel underpowered or lack pointing ability in light air, which takes us back to the earlier discussion about angle of attack.

When the boat is too flat and underpowered, and crew hiking isn’t needed, I carry as much headstay sag as I can without feeling that the jib leech is returning into the main, the headstay is becoming unstable due to chop or sea state, or the headsail’s draft is too far forward. In light air with a lot of headstay sag, often I ease the sheet slightly so that the leech doesn’t return into the main.

As the wind builds and the crew start hiking, I slowly reduce headstay sag. When everyone is fully hiking and the trimmers are looking to depower to reduce heel, I’ll be near maximum headstay tightness. From the trimmer’s position, the headstay will look nearly straight to the eye. What is maximum tightness? That’s when the backstay tightens to the point where the headstay is firm and the mainsail is too flat and starts to look like it is inside out. Sensors that measure headstay load can be helpful in knowing the load you are at and to confirm you aren’t loading above a manufacturer’s recommended safe working load.

Jib Halyard Tension

Halyard tension primarily ­controls the draft position of your headsail. A tighter halyard pulls the draft forward, while a looser halyard lets the draft aft. In general, most boats like the draft between 29 and 34 percent through the middle of the sail. Imagine a straight line from the leading edge of the draft stripe to the trailing edge of the draft stripe. A point on the draft stripe (think deepest part of the curve) is farthest from that imaginary line. This is your draft location. When we say draft at 30 percent, we’re saying that the deepest part of the draft stripe is 30 percent back from the luff to the leech on the sail. While we don’t see it often, marks on the draft stripe at 25, 30 and 35 percent can be helpful.

Two primary factors affect draft position, and thus how much halyard is needed to correct it. First and most important is headstay sag, discussed previously. As a headstay sags, it pushes depth into the front of the sail. Ease the halyard and you can get the draft back to the desired location. Inversely, if the headstay is tight and the shape in the front of the sail is pulled out, a tight halyard pulls the draft forward to the desired location. That’s why having good reference marks on halyards is so important. At a leeward mark, if the pit person puts the halyard back where it was at the weather mark, your draft location should be the same.

The second factor is the age of the sail. As a sail ages, the draft naturally goes aft. New sails have the draft quite forward, and thus require less halyard tension to achieve the desired draft location. The opposite is also true. As a sail ages and the draft slides aft, more and more halyard tension is required to pull the draft forward.

Once you understand how the halyard changes draft position, you can fine-tune the sail shape. What’s cool is as you pull halyard tension on and pull the draft forward in the sail, the aft part of the sail gets flatter. That causes less drag when overpowered. Likewise, when underpowered, less halyard tension makes the back part of the sail slightly fuller, which powers the boat up—great for light air and flat water. Now you can point high without fear of hitting a wave and slowing. It’s trickier in choppy conditions. Then, when powered up, a draft-forward sail helps drive the boat through the chop. In underpowered, choppy conditions, the sheet is likely eased a little to keep the boat going, and thus a softer halyard keeps the boat powered up, pulling it through the chop.

Jib Lead Position

Now let’s talk about lead ­position, which controls the overall camber of your headsail. While it does have an effect on the entire sail, it is most noticeable in the bottom 50 percent. Lead forward creates a fuller, more powerful headsail while lead aft flattens the headsail.

As a general rule, most boats prefer the camber between 11 and 15 percent through the middle and lower middle of the sail. Imagine a straight line from the leading edge of your draft stripe to the trailing edge of your draft stripe. A point on the draft stripe (think deepest part of the curve) is farthest from the imaginary line. This, like your draft location, is also your camber. We divide the length of the imaginary line connecting the front and back of the draft stripe by the length of the imaginary line connecting the deepest part of the sail to the closest spot on the imaginary line. When we say camber at 15 percent, we’re saying that the deepest part of the draft stripe is 15 percent of the overall length of the imaginary line connecting the front of the stripe to the back of the stripe.

While other factors affect the camber of a headsail, such as headstay sag, halyard tension, battens and the age of the sail, the lead has the greatest effect over the bottom of the sail. As you push the lead forward, the bottom of the sail becomes more powerful but also ­creates drag because the wind has to bend around the sail as it passes by. As you pull the lead aft, the bottom of the sail ­flattens, reducing drag but also decreasing power.

A large part of the ­headsail’s lead position is balancing the overall camber of the sail while keeping the telltales breaking close to even. Why do I say close? I believe it is a bit of a myth that they should break evenly. Aboard every fast boat I sail on, the top telltales break just a hair sooner than the lower ones. This is especially true when the boat is fully ­powered up with crew hiking. A slightly twisted open sail ­promotes full flow on the leech telltales while depowering the top of the sail first, which helps righting moment.

As I mentioned before, the age of the sail can result in an overly full sail. As a sail ages, it often requires a flatter foot to maintain a consistent camber. And, as with most things in life, balance is required. If a sagging forestay creates too much camber, lead aft can help. I find that balancing all of these controls is the key to fast sail shapes. Too much of one thing resulting in not enough of another can be slow.

Let’s look at when you want a full versus a flat-footed sail. Because it is a major control of overall power, is it safe to say that the more overpowered you are, the flatter you want your jib. When looking for power, a fuller jib is generally better to a point. If it is choppy and the driver must steer lower to keep the boat moving, a fuller jib will generally help keep the bow down and the boat powerful. In flat water, when powered up without fear that the boat will hit chop and slow down, the foot can be relatively flat and the jib sheeted hard to decrease drag and help ­pointing ability.

Jib Sheet Tension

While sheet tension might seem like the easiest part to understand when trimming a headsail, it can be the hardest to master. And while it has minimal effect on draft location, it can have a great effect on overall camber, balance of the boat and helm, and pointing ability.

Taking away other factors, when you ease a headsail sheet, the bottom of the sail gets fuller, while the top of the sail twists open and naturally gets flatter. As with lead position, a significant part of good headsail sheet tension is balancing the overall camber of the entire sail while keeping the telltales breaking close to even.

One factor when ­determining how hard to sheet the jib is backwind in the mainsail. In general, backwinding the mainsail is bad when it can be helped, and easing the sheet a little can really help settle down a luffing mainsail. As a headsail trimmer, I look for a bubble developing at the leading edge of the main, generally around a third up from the bottom of the sail. A slight bubble is often fine, but when the bubble starts “pumping” or the mainsail full-on luffs from front to back, I ease the sheet a little or let the jib lead aft to open up the leech.

Airflow across the sail is just as important, and the go-to indicator on nonoverlapping jibs is leech telltales. While we generally don’t see leech telltales on larger overlapping headsails, perhaps it would be a good thing to start doing. Leech telltale flow is critical for smaller boats because we generally try to sheet as hard as we can without stalling them. By sheeting the headsail tight, we allow the boat to point as high into the wind as it can. I watch the upper leech telltales like a hawk. While mainsails seem to be OK with a little stall in the top telltale, I find that headsails enjoy 100 percent flow. I will often test my sheet tension by sheeting harder until the ­telltales start to stall behind the leech, and then ease it slightly until they fly again. When we’re in a tactical situation that requires sailing a little higher and slower, I will occasionally sheet hard enough that the top leech telltale stalls 10 percent of the time, but never more. These changes are always subtle. On a boat like an Etchells, I’ll move the clew through a range of 3 to 5 millimeters. On a larger boat such as a 50-footer, 8 to 12 millimeters would be a decent range.

We’ve got headstay sag, halyard tension, lead position and sheet tension. None of these functions in isolation. Adjust one and it affects something else.

Finally, with so many ­variables and adjustments, the jib leech tension changes a lot through puffs and lulls. In a lull, often the leech will get tighter because there is less wind stretching it out. This often requires a little ease. Of course, the opposite is true in a puff, and then I’ll bring the sail in a little. It’s vital to communicate with the tactician and driver. Within your final headsail settings, you have the capability to help the boat sail in three ­different modes: slightly higher and slower, slightly lower and faster, and normal velocity made good (VMG). For tactical reasons, the tactician or helms­person might want one of these modes.

OK, let’s put it all together now. We’ve got headstay sag, halyard tension, lead position and sheet tension. None of these functions in isolation. Adjust one and it affects something else. It’s a bit like juggling four balls—the only way you’ll keep them in the air is if you keep them in sync. Let’s sail a hypothetical windward leg, one where we encounter puffs and lulls, and have to account for the occasional tactical situation. Hopefully, by seeing how I manage those elements of jib control, you’ll have a better idea of how you can keep all the balls in the air and work toward perfect jib trim. For this windward leg, I’m ­sailing with the tactician, Steve, the helmsperson, Jim, and our wind caller, Serena.

First, we did our homework. We spent some time sailing upwind before the start, which gave me time to set up the jib as I liked for the conditions, around 8 knots and flat water. With that trim as my normal upwind VMG, we now have a baseline for everything else I’ll do with the jib.

At the start, I’m at 95 percent trim from my baseline. This means I’m close to maximum sheet tension. It’s good for accelerating at a start or out of a tack, or reaccelerating after hitting chop.

At the start, I’m at 95 percent trim from my baseline. This means I’m close to maximum sheet tension. It’s good for accelerating at a start or out of a tack, or reaccelerating after hitting chop. The boat’s moving well and we’re accelerating, as are the boats around us. After a boatlength or two, I feel the boat moving at full speed, so I pull in the sheet just a few more clicks and say, “Max trim” or “100 percent trim.” That tells Steve and Jim that we are trimmed for our best upwind VMG. How do I know this? The leech ­telltales are flowing 100 percent, but just barely. They are on the verge of stalling because they seem jittery rather than fully streaming. As it is only blowing 8 knots, I have set up the jib powerfully, with 3 to 4 inches of headstay sag, the lead set forward to allow a fair amount of power down low, and slight wrinkles in the luff, allowing the draft to slide back to around 30 percent.

Steve starts talking about seeing more wind on the top left side of the course and says we should go fast forward to the left. As the headsail trimmer, I can help make that happen. It’s all simple, subtle changes. I ease the sheet a few millimeters to let the top leech telltales stream with force. If it was windier, I would pull the draft forward with more halyard. This would flatten the back and reduce drag, helping the boat go forward. However, because it is light and we are still looking for maximum power, I will leave the halyard soft. Combined with efforts from the main trimmer and driver, we shift to a low and fast mode.

As we get out to the left side, the wind starts building, as predicted, to 12 to 13 knots. We are fully powered up and hiking hard, but we’re heeling too much. It’s time to depower the headsail. Because the water is so flat, I ask for more backstay to pull out some forestay sag, and then slide the lead aft a hair. As the backstay tensions, I see the leech open slightly, so I pull on some sheet to get the leech right back where it was, with the top leech telltale flowing as before. I have also pulled on more halyard to get the draft forward to the 29 percent range.

We’re now solidly in the ­pressure, and Steve says we should go back to normal VMG. On comes the jib sheet to get the top leech telltales just on the verge of stalling. “Max trim,” I say. A minute or two shy of the layline, we tack onto port and work our way back into the ­middle of the course.

As we come out of the tack, I say “90 percent trim.” Just a few seconds later I say, “95 ­percent.” Seconds later I say, “99 percent.” I really want to make sure we are at full speed before getting to 100 percent, or max trim. As we get back to the center of the course, the wind becomes a little puffy. I’m constantly watching the leech to see if I need to sheet on or off as the leech changes slightly with the puffs. I’m moving the sheet through a range of just 5 to 10 millimeters. Serena calls that this next lull will last at least a minute or longer, so I power the jib up a little with a softer halyard.

As we get closer to the mark, a competitor tacks in front of us and slightly to leeward. Steve says he would prefer not to tack. To keep our air clear for as long as possible, it’s time for a high mode. We’re still in that lull and not overpowered, so I call for a slight backstay ease. That sags the headstay a ­little, ­helping the sail’s angle of attack to the wind—all great for pointing. As the headstay sags a little, the leech telltales want to stall sooner, so I am vigilant about not overtrimming the sail. I know—it’s ­counterintuitive to have the sheet out a little when trying to sail in a high mode, but it’s important not to stall the jib. If the boat slows too much, the keel does less work, and we will start sliding to leeward. After the changes, we are higher and slower, and able to hold our lane.

The wind builds again, and Serena calls out that there is a chop ahead of us, mostly caused by competitors’ wakes, which are crisscrossing everywhere. A little draft forward in the jib will help us punch through the chop in the stronger wind, so I tighten the halyard a little, and the draft moves from 32 to 30 percent. As an unwanted side effect, the leech gets tighter because the halyard is pulling against the sheet. I can tell this because the leech telltales start stalling. I must either ease the sheet a little or let the lead move aft. If we’re looking for power to get through the waves but not to be overpowered, I generally just ease the sheet, which not only opens the leech but also powers up the bottom of the sail. However, right now we are fully powered up, so a little lead aft opens the top of the leech back up, depowering the sail a little. We’re now just boatlengths from the weather mark.

We don’t always run into that many different conditions, but for our purposes, I threw them in so you could see the range of my trimming routine. I try to remember that headsail shape always needs to change based on changing conditions and tactical decisions. I imagine a perfect shape—how I want the jib to look in each condition—and then use the four controls to achieve that. And I’m always anticipating, constantly asking myself what my next change will be if this happened or that happens. I listen to our crew calling puffs and stay ready with a change before the boat slows or heels too much.

One change often affects another part of this hypothetical shape and, as I emphasized earlier, multiple changes often go together. If you can manage that while staying on the same page as the rest of the crew about what mode you need to be in, you’ll go a long way toward keeping the jib optimally trimmed the entire weather leg.

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It’s good to have rules of thumb to help you sail the boat as fast as possible in all conditions. Such guidelines can help the skipper drive their best and give the crew a common purpose in how they react to changes in wind. One distinction that can help you increase speed is to identify if you should be telltale or heel-angle sailing. In lighter winds, telltale sailing is appropriate—the skipper works hard to stream the telltales at all times for maximum speed, and the crew moves around to create perfect heel. In overpowered heel-angle ­sailing conditions, the skipper can steer much more freely, focusing on a consistent heel angle while the crew hikes hard. In light air, it’s all about maintaining speed; in breeze, it’s all about the heel angle.

Underpowered Conditions

Here, the crew controls heel angle and the skipper sails exclusively to the telltales. The goal is to stream the telltales, setting up the boat for maximum speed. The heel angle is totally on the crew, and it’s best if someone can communicate the power in the boat—maybe the skipper or mainsheet trimmer—to help coordinate the team’s movements. If it’s really light, you might be heeling the boat a little extra to leeward, and just how much needs to be communicated to the crew so the boat feels as good as possible.

In these light conditions, the jib trimmer should be to leeward playing the jib. If shifts come or the skipper needs to sail deeper to gain speed, the jib trimmer is right there to trim or ease, depending on the situation. The main goals the skipper is trying to achieve are sailing straight and keeping max speed. To allow that to happen, the crew moves to keep the heel angle perfect while the jib trimmer adjusts the jib.

For example, if there’s a wave set coming, the jib trimmer eases the jib while you bear off slightly. The bow down and coinciding jib ease keep the telltales streaming. The same thing happens if the boat suddenly slows—bow down and jib out to keep the telltales streaming. If the boat starts to feel great and the skipper can head up, the jib trimmer trims the jib with the turn to keep the telltales streaming perfectly.

Going straight, as opposed to heading up in a puff, or bearing off to pick up speed really connects the wind to the jib. Ideally, it never stalls. Some people call it “pressing” or “sailing fat” on the jib. Either way, you’re creating power, and that’s where the boat feels best. If the leeward telltales start to luff, the jib trimmer eases the jib a little to make the telltales stream rather than having you heading up. If you head up for heel-angle sailing in light winds, you end up pinching, and it really slows the boat. In a small puff, it’s much faster if the crew hikes against that power while you continue to sail straight.

During this light-air mode, the crew should be fully focused on moving around to keep the boat at the desired heel. When a puff hits, they should move to the high side quickly and smoothly to keep the heel perfect, and when the breeze dies, they should slide in. A slow-moving crew encourages the skipper to head up in puffs and bear away in lulls, which wastes power in puffs and height in lulls, and reduces speed. A ­well-coordinated team in light air is very fast—skipper sailing fast, jib trimmer working the jib, and crew super-concentrated on the perfect heel. Because it’s fast to have the jib trimmer play in the jib in lighter winds, the first person off the rail in a dying breeze should be the jib trimmer. They are much more effective to leeward, with a ­perfect view of the jib.

Building Breeze

Now the crew is starting to get up on the rail. They’re not yet fully hiking, but everyone’s on the high side. You trim the sails in a bit, the jib trimmer is on the high side, and the jib is cleated. The boat’s feeling pretty good. Now you can start sailing a little more to heel angle, which means steering up a bit in the puffs. The main trimmer is in the loop here as well, helping the skipper keep the boat at the correct angle of heel.

Keep in mind that, if there’s chop or waves, the boat is reaccelerating all the time, so you might not be able to pinch so much in the puffs in these conditions. You might be telltale sailing still if it’s real bumpy, so when you get a puff, the crew should hike and trimmers should ease the main or depower in some other way, depending on your boat—traveler down, backstay off, whatever you’re playing to keep the boat on its feet and keep speed through the chop.

In flat water, it’s fine to head up in the puffs a little to keep the heel angle down, raising the forward inside jib telltales to 45 degrees or so. As a rule, head up just enough for a little telltale lift when needed and encourage the crew to hike hard. Briefly pinching buys you time to depower and get the crew hiking, all the while ­keeping the heel angle perfect.

Overpowered Conditions

This is true heel-angle sailing. The breeze has built to the point where everyone’s fully hiked, and you’re easing the main or dropping the traveler to keep a constant angle of heel. The crew has essentially become ballast, and they are hiking as hard as they can. As long as the boat’s moving at a decent speed, you can head up as much as you need to keep the boat flat. In a big breeze, you might even luff a foot or two of the front of the jib when a big puff hits until you get sorted with easing the main, tightening the backstay or whatever you’re doing to depower. You’re going so fast and having so much power (too much) that sailing that high is fine.

A few years ago, when I was sailing my Etchells—just my third regatta after buying it—the breeze quickly increased, and we were overpowered. I headed up to keep the boat from heeling too much, bubbling the front 6 inches of the jib, and my main trimmer said, “Awesome mode! We’re flying!” And I was thinking, “What? I’m waiting for you guys to depower the boat so I can put the bow back down.” But I looked around, and we were higher and faster than everybody. We experimented with flattening the main and getting the bow down to stream the telltales, but it was not quite as good. That day we learned a new mode—that we could luff the jib in breeze and we’d go just fine. The main point here, though, is that in heel-angle sailing, the skipper should steer up to avoid heeling.

If it’s breezy but the water is flat, you can pinch a little more because there are no waves to slow the boat. If you’re sailing in waves and pressing on the telltales to go faster, constantly trying to accelerate, watch for flat spots. Every surfer will tell you that waves come in sets and in different shapes and sizes. Even on wavy and choppy days, there will be 5- to 15-meter ­circular spots that are pretty flat. Some sailors call them plateaus. If you enter a plateau and get a puff, try to feather or pinch. In general, you’ll probably be able to sail little higher than when in the bumps. Just before the waves return, drop the bow down, depower, and go for speed. In those conditions, you’re shifting back and forth between slightly bow down and true heel-angle sailing based on waves or flat spots.

The art of driving well comes after you understand everything we’ve been talking about, but then throw in the presence of shifts. Steering well suddenly becomes a moving target as you try to keep the boat at the perfect angle to the wind and coinciding perfect heel while the wind is shifting.

When that’s the case, here’s a good rule of thumb: If a puff is approaching from directly in front of you, it will most likely be a header. If it’s coming from your windward side over your shoulder, it’s most likely a lift. Knowing this can help you drive and trim the sails more accurately when they hit. The goals—maintaining a constant angle of heel and good speed—are the same, and if you can follow the shifts up and down while accomplishing that, you can really sail away from the fleet. For example, you get a nice-size puff that overpowers the boat. Normally during heel-angle sailing, you would head up to keep the heel the same. But if the puff is a header, you continue steering straight, the front of the jib bubbles, and everything works out fine. The shift helped you pinch without having to steer.

Conversely, again in a big breeze, you get a big puff, and it’s a lift. You understand that in overpowered conditions, a puff that’s also a lift is really going to knock you over. That’s because all of the sudden you are tight reaching, the opposite of pinching. It’s as if you bore away in a big puff, causing the boat to heel more. Rather than getting knocked over, good teams will “burp” the sails an extra amount right from the start, and the skipper will start heading up quickly and steer more than normal. That will help avoid the excess heel angle. At that moment, the main trimmer must ease the main a lot, and if the jib trimmer can ease the jib as well, or maybe the inhauler, even better.

On a J/70, for example, the jib trimmer might be inhauling the jib by bow-stringing the windward sheet on the high side, pulling the clew toward the mast. In that lift and puff, easing the windward sheet moves the jib trim-angle outboard, similar to easing the leeward sheet but better because the jib does not increase camber. It’s like dropping the main traveler—the whole sail barn-doors out while keeping the same shape and depowering the boat, and also opening the slot between the main and jib. Once back to a pinching angle, retrim the sails, and off you go having avoided excess heel.

In a blustery breeze, you can make big gains by balancing the concepts of sailing by the telltales and sailing by heel angle, knowing what your desired angle to the wind is and then factoring in lifts and headers along the way. The goal is to keep your boat in the best state possible, knowing that you’ll never be perfect all the time. As a skipper, when I head out for a race in shifty conditions, I think: “I’m going to try to keep my boat and sails at the perfect angle to the wind more than everyone else. And if I can do that a higher percentage of the time, I’ll probably be the fastest boat out there.” Keep in mind the two steering modes, and you can too.

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