Re: Dinghy sailing in bigger winds

Stephen Page <steve@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:

>Hey chaps/chapesses

>My two sons sail/race Cadets and, being light (50kgs+23kgs) struggle
>badly in the bigger winds (f4+).  I don't have the expertise to guide
>them but I believe it is as much a matter of technique as weight.

Rig tuning is essential; you can get that out of a cookbook. But there
are two key skills for heavy air:

1.  Sailing the boat on the traveller and sheets, not the tiller.
Play the traveler (and then the sheets) to keep the boat flat and the
helm just to weather of neutral.  The tiller is just a mechanism for
transmitting informtion on how to play the traveller and sheet, not
for steering the boat.

Playing a traveller in heavy air is hard, hard upper-body work.  The
mainsheet trimmer will need to build upper-body strength and stamina.


2. Reading the wind.  To play the traveller and sheets effectively,
the trimmers must anticipate every puff and hole. The crew has to
watch the wind on the water and count the puffs and holes down to the
boat.  Then the maintrimmer can ease or tighten in anticipation of the
change, not in reaction to it.


Caveat: I don't know anything about Cadets; I sail one-design
keelboats (such as Etchells and Sonars). But the principle is the
same.  I've seen light crews do very well in national and
international regattas; the key is to keep the foils -- sails,
keel/centerboard and rudder -- from stalling.

-- 
dhs spencer@[EMAIL PROTECTED]