Author Topic: heading up wind  (Read 4413 times)

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Offline jonny_harris

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heading up wind
« on: July 14, 2014, 11:01:58 AM »
Hey guys
After a bit of knowledge had an amazing weekend in waymouth thanks to all that was there.... We felt we has decent boat speed in ronin at times but we struggled with hight... We seem the only way to sail with any speed was crack off 10° lower than every one else and just go. Is there anything we could change or do differently?
Thanks
Jonny

Offline MK

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Re: heading up wind
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2014, 09:46:42 AM »
Are there any photos from the weekend, would be useful to see the sail settings

First guess would be not enough kicker, but hard to say anything without more info

Offline Tim Noyce

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Re: heading up wind
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2014, 11:16:13 AM »
Kicker kicker kicker.... MAINSHEET TENSION.... then cunningham. Seriously, never underestimate the amount of kicker which you need. Then once you have enough of that on and you are overpowered then start going to town on the cunningham to loosen up the top of the sail. As Matt says, without seeing photos it is difficult to tell, but in around 95% of photos, people always look like they could do with more kicker with these big square tops.

Make sure you are keeping the boom on or near the centreline to give you height. If you are spilling too much wind to stay upright then you might want to rake the rig a bit more too, so that you can keep the main sheeted sufficiently. Might be worth checking mainsheet strop lengths to make sure you have got the boom in the middle before you get block to block.

Otherwise, swing it flat and work it in the gusts to maximise your height. Don't pinch though, as that is slow and the boat will stall out.