· Page Last Updated 9 May 1999
One of the great things about sailing as a sport is that you're always learning. What I'm learning right now is how much greater the workload on the helmsman of a single hander is - to date my serious sailing career has been done almost exclusively at the front end of boats. When you add this to a boat that takes a lot to get the best out of it then the result - well lets say it leaves a lot to be desired! Yesterday was lightish and shifty. The wind strength was say about 8 knots, and reasonably steady in strength, but most definitely not in direction! This was enough to have the boat planing most of the time on the beats, and planing seems definitely to be faster. Faster, that is, if you point the boat in the right direction. For two laps I was, and was definitely catching up ISOs and things after my usual (in the current state of boat handling) "hang back from the line and give the good guys some space" start. After those two laps I then managed to get comprehensively out of the groove, miss all the shifts, and get deservedly and embarrassingly overtaken on the beats by the people I'd just overtaken on the previous downwind legs...
The lesson, I think, is to be aware of everything. Right now I'm getting reasonable at keeping the boat on its feet and moving, but not nearly aware enough of the wind. It seems, too, that I'm finding the headers much more difficult to spot than the lifts. A lot, I think, is because in those conditions the apparent wind changes so much with strength, its easy to miss that the direction has changed to. Again, its all part of the interest of sailing a light and responsive boat, and after all, Its no fun if its easy! Strange, when I was crewing I had no great problem spotting the shifts and gusts... I don't suppose Ben Ainslie would have so much trouble either. All I need is a bit more sailing ability :-)
Normal Club race, around 10 knots, shifty and with gusty bands of 15-18 coming through. A course that was all beating and very broad reaching. Not sailing the boat well enough to do anything. In particular I have a long way to go before I get the knack of square running. Just depowering the rig slightly upwind for the first time by pulling on some cunningham to open the top roach by bending the top mast. Seems to work. The gybing angles are absolutely critical in this type of boat, and square running has never been one of my stronger points of sailing anyway. Capsized the boat to leeward for the first time, and to my surprise and pleasure it stayed on its side and was easy to pull up. Less happily I experienced a small partial compression failure on the bottom of one of the wing beams where it goes over the gunwale. Entirely my own fault, I sort of "bounced" sitting out off the end of the wing, which was less than sensible. However there needs to be local reinforcement in that area. I'll consult those who know more than I and maybe put in a piece of high density foam core and beef up the area appreciably. Gave people some entertainment coming in. Decided the old "pull all the foils up and drift in gently sideways" trick was going to be favourite. It was too, once I eventually got to the side of the pond, two hundred yards downwind!
Armed with a newly rebuilt (with lots of carbon) rudder stock, it was time for the annual club pursuit race. The forecast was dreadful, rain and force 8 plus. In practice the depression that was bringing the wind stopped moving, and we got the rain, but, for the first race, only about 8 knots of breeze.
In those conditions I wasn't expecting to do very well, and sure enough I didn't. Being a somewhat mediocre helm, all else being equal, I'd probably expect to finish about halfway up the fleet. In fact I was a fair bit behind that although as the gun went, I was just getting in reach of the last few Enterprises and Lasers and things. The boat was going very nicely upwind, and I was going very badly downwind, mistiming the gybe on *every* run! I was able to handily beat the club RS300, who's just as far down the learning curve as I was, and in the windier bits was going at roughly the same sort of rate as an RS600 which eventually finished well ahead of me due to better sailing! I'd taken a handicap equivalent to about 950 on the UK Portsmouth Yardstick scale , roughly between the RS300 and RS600, which seems to be about right.
Before the start of the second race it was getting a bit windier, about 10 to 12 knots, so I thought things ought to be a bit better for me. In fact I had extreme difficulty getting the boat going properly upwind - it felt almost as if there was something round the dagger board and I was having trouble keeping her properly on the plane. When I could get her going properly speed was about equal to the RS600, but when I couldn't I was a lot slower. The rain started getting heavier, the wind started dropping, I was getting cold and tired, and there were domestic reasons why it was going to be good to get home early, so I called it a day after the third leg of the first lap...
A good 10 or 12 knots, with a bit more coming through in bands. I figured I was ready to have a half serious attempt at a race, provided that I was reasonably careful about avoiding close quarters manoeuvring and generally messing up other folks' days.
Managed a comprehensively dreadful start by messing up the last tack before the gun, leaving me two hundred yards short of the line rather than the planned twenty or so. However the wind was enough to be fully powered upwind, and I discovered that I seemed to be able to keep the boat nicely on the plane and still point higher than just about everything else on the water (mainly Solos and Lasers). Consequently when I tacked well above the windward mark there only about 6 boats left in front. The next leg was a beam reach, so that dealt with the Solos and Lasers in front, although I let a few of them back through by leaving them about 5 boats length of space at the gybe at the end. This was followed by a broader reach, still very nicely powered up, and would guess that I was getting up towards a good ten or twelve knots, and considering whether I could catch the ISO that was the only remaining boat ahead when...
The bottom "fitting" on the rudder stock had let go quite comprehensively. So that was the end of the weekend's sailing. Back to the drawing board. Here's some pictures and thoughts on the failure for those who are interested. In spite of the failure - and a rudder stock is particularly embarrassing as I've been known to cast aspersions on other people's stock designs in the past - it was a useful and enjoyable sail. I've learnt more about handling the boat, and it really is a joy to sail in those conditions, planing extremely quickly and controllably.
About 5 to 10 knots. Didn't really learn anything new, just building on what I've learned before. My boat handling is slowly improving and I can tack most of the time now... Daggerboard size definitely needs to be bigger though - the plate can stall out when trying to sail slowly in moderate breeze - for example while attempting to get alongside a jetty!
And why the long delay between trips out in the boat? Be warned people - in the mean time there have been a lot of domestic conversations upon the general lines of "Now you've got that d*** boat finished you can get on with..." and so I've spent most of the spare time recently building a new PC for 'er indoors, followed by a major upgrade of the room she's putting it in.
Lighter Winds this time - about 4-8 knots but variable. I actually started a race this time, but not in any kind of serious manner - until the boathandling is reasonable I feel its unfair to overtake someone to windward, mess up a tack, and do the same thing again two minutes later... Thus the only tactics involved were to ensure the others, taking the race rather more seriously, got clear air. It was much easier to sail the boat upwind with someone else to get a pointing angle from, and by the end of the race I was able to get the boat going upwind reasonably satisfactorily, and planing upwind most of the time. Its quite evident that it is possible to point very high indeed in this boat, and that doing so is very slow. Cross wind reaching speed is excellent, as one would expect, although there weren't any of the faster two-handers to get much of a guide from. Square running, of which there was a lot on the course, was definitely more challenging. I suspect that gybing downwind will be faster in most conditions, but when the wind drops below planing strength its very easy to point far too high in an attempt to get speed back up. This is a practice and experience issue I'm sure.
My boat handling was still a long way short of adequate. Two particular issues were evident.
The first is tacking. Whilst the dagger board seems to be a reasonable size when sailing correctly, it is rather easy to come out of a tack with all the foils stalled out as mentioned before. Getting out of this situation is quite tricky as the boat won't readily bear away with the rudder stalled out. Another time I think I'd specify a larger than necessary daggerboard to make handling easier. Not, I suspect, a problem for the skilled helmsman, but rather an issue for myself, whose skills I definitely place in the average bracket...
The second issue is a definite tendency to roll in on very broad reaches or square running. Its not a problem actually gybing, but it is before and after, most especially when changing course significantly. Partially this is of course the classic thing of a the combination of large sails and hull shape overcoming rudder forces, but I speculate that there might also be effects concerned with the square top sail. It seems to occur principally when making a large course change, and in such circumstances the flow must become detached and attached to the sail. This will inevitably mean the generation of large vortices, which with this sail I suspect may be greater and higher than with a more conventional rig. Also, of course, with a large roach sail, its probably quite easy to let the boom out far enough for the top of the sail to generate a significant windward heeling force.
Well, this is the page I've wanted to start for some time. Actually I'm so stiff and sore I can hardly type, but never mind.
The weather was around Force 3 - say about 8 to 10 knots, but varying lots in bands and with some lighter and stronger gusts. I elected to use the mast in high position, which is intended to be good to 15-18 knots. This was probably as much wind as I'd have wanted to use it in for a first sail.
Well, I rigged it, set off across the reservoir at a pretty decent pace, and about 400 yards out the knot I'd tied the toe straps on with let go. Splash. New one/third length tiller extension. Well, I can report that the water start method for getting back into the boat works very nicely. Wandered back in and got out the duct tape and put it back together again, then went out for a couple more blasts round the reservoir, which included a couple of windward roll ins.
The speed was pretty dramatic. Basically as soon as the true wind was more than about 55 degrees off the bow the boat went straight up on the plane and stays there. Judging by the amount the apparent wind came back on quite broad reaches its achieving a pretty decent percentage of true wind speed. Its also very definitely a two mode boat, and if the boat drops off the plane in a large lull its necessary to point up dramatically when the breeze comes back to get the apparent wind forward again and the boat going again. I think in most conditions it will be faster to tack downwind.
Beating is going to take quite a bit more practice. The boat readily planes when freed off a little, but in these conditions it wouldn't plane when pointing as high as it could go. This wasn't really a surprise, but because the apparent wind heads forward so fast on very fine reaches and because the wind was shifting a lot it was quite difficult to establish exactly how high the boat was pointing. Plenty of work to do to establish how to get it upwind!
Well, its not easy. Once it was planing it steadied up tremendously, the rudder loads were very light and I could point it anywhere. However if I messed up a tack (frequent occurrence!) I ended up with rudder and centreboard stalled out (this may have been partly because I couldn't get the centreboard down properly - a little light filing required) and the boat was very edgy and uncertain. This was also the case when I was unwise enough to try square running (FX: splash). On the other hand gybing was very straightforward and viceless provided I kept on the plane. This was only 10 knots though, 25 might be another matter.
Capsize recovery will need work. Because of the buoyancy in the ends of the wings the boat inverts immediately. It was extremely difficult to get the boat past about a 45 degree inverted position - pulling on the end of the daggerboard just wasn't enough leverage - and so I'm going to have to fit long righting lines that I can exert lots of leverage on. Once the boat is on its side it flips up easily enough, but its too high a climb up onto the wing to get over. However once its up its very easy to climb onto the wing and in, with the buoyancy in the wing helping this time!
One of the things I was considering when I was mulling over options for the wings was to have the tip buoyancy as open but slow flooding tanks. This would have helped enormously with the capsize recovery, but I decided it was too much of a complication in construction. Maybe I was wrong!
Other significant factors are psychological. Its very easy to sit in the "middle" of the boat with three feet of wing and flare stretching out behind you and think that there's no need to dive for the middle of the boat if the wind dies. However this "In the middle" position is actually with the weight over the chine, and a rapid windward heel ensues.
The other thing I'll need is another ten tons of non-slip. I knew I hadn't put enough in, but I was falling over everywhere. A particular favourite was falling over backwards as the boat accelerated out of a tack or gybe - this boat seems to accelerate like a Cherub!
Rigging is bearable - I could stand up and hoist the sail from in the boat, although its not exactly steady. I've fitted mooring lines (which double as righting lines) in the wing tips fore and aft, and tying the boat to a jetty with these stabilises it up lots of course. An unexpected difficulty is coming alongside a jetty. It may have been because the wind direction was awkward, but basically I had to sail right up to the jetty bow on, then take a 90 degree turn literally at the last second in order to get a bit of boat I could climb out of alongside the jetty. To add to the complication you can't be anywhere near the edge of the boat because the wing would either sink or there's be far to much power on. Coming into a beach will be much easier I expect - shame we haven't got any.Sailing the Boat
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· Page Last Updated 9 May 1999