Upwind sailing advice?

Merrily

Administrator
I was sailing last evening on my Radial with wind around 12 knots, I guess. I weigh around 158 lbs or 72 k, more if you include my gear, which puts me at the top end of the Radial weights. I had the cunningham and outhaul cranked on tight, the vang tighter than two blocked, traveller a little loose, hiked as hard as I could, and I was still having trouble holding the boat down. Is this just going to happen at that wind speed? I suppose there were 15 k gusts. Any advice?

Merrily
 
You should be fully powered up at 12 knots and looking to depower at 15 knots. You don't mention how tall you are if you are able to hike with your back straight out or hunched (all dealing with how much leverage you are able to generate)

Traveller should be tight.

What really matters in all this is if you are fast or not. Holding the boat dead upright is great, but it doesn't mean squat if you have depowered so much that you can't point and are slow. 2 boat testing/practice is the best way to sort that out quickly.

Have you read Minth's article in the latest Laser Sailor ? - he had a pretty good breakdown on setting up the controls in various winds.
 
Another recent article is in the May 2005 issue of Sailing World and is a writeup of an interview with Paige Railey. I found this article and Ryan Mynth's article in the Winter 2005 Laser Sailor both very interesting. Both articles have good information on how to setup all your controls in various wind conditions.

Of course these are guidelines and you have to adapt them for your weight and fitness level.
 
I would go with no cunningham or vang, as tight as you can get the traveler, a pretty tight hiking strap, and the outhaul as deap as a handwith. If you have any trouble with that then pull on the cunnigham. If you continue to have trouble, pull the cunningham down to the boom and pinch. I would avoid vang and outhaul because you would loose a lot of height.
 
OK, thanks to all who replied. I'll try it with less controls, but I was in chicken mode. Forgot to bring wetsuit/drysuit and the water was 60 degrees. My timidity almost landed me in the drink, anyway. That Ryan Minth article in the Laser Sailor, was it more than one page? Mine is only one page and has a rather odd ending, so I'm wondering if there's more?

Merrily
 
Merrily said:
That Ryan Minth article in the Laser Sailor, was it more than one page? Mine is only one page and has a rather odd ending, so I'm wondering if there's more?

Merrily

Yes it did have a funny ending so I went back to his old article to find out how it was supposed to end.
The Winter 2005 Laser Sailor ended with "I have said it one hundred times:"
and that was it ... but Ryan referred to his Fall 2001 article and I looked that up and found it in the Summer 2001 Laser Sailor. That version ended with "Now it's blowing 30, you are in a Radial, and if I have said it once, I have said it one hundred times, "YOU WILL DIG HEAVY AIR!" Oh wait, that's James Liebl's line. (At least I spelled his name right this issue.) See you on the H2O!"
 
49208 said:
Have you read Minth's article in the latest Laser Sailor ? - he had a pretty good breakdown on setting up the controls in various winds.

Minth talks about the sail becoming inverted in higher winds. What does that mean, inverted?

Merrily
 
It's pretty simple actually. You just hike as hard as you can and for as long as you can and try to keep the boat flat by stalling it up against the wind. Also in my opinion there is no chicken mode in sailing. Conservative methods may help you win more places than you can expect.
 
Merrily said:
Minth talks about the sail becoming inverted in higher winds. What does that mean, inverted?

Merrily

Inverted is when the max mast bend exceeds what the designed luff curve and cloth stretch can handle. The sail ends up with a number of wrinkles or folds from the point of max mast bend on the luff to the clew. AKA as turning the sail inside out.

It's usually not fast to sail with an inverted sail, and it really shortens the life of the sail as the cloth is forced to stretch beyond it's designed limits
 
Merrily said:
Minth talks about the sail becoming inverted in higher winds. What does that mean, inverted?

Merrily

Another explaination of this was posted to the laser maillist. I've cut & pasted that reply here:

what is? Inverting the sail

* To: laser@xxxxxxxxx
* Subject: what is? Inverting the sail
* From: Keeldude@xxxxxxx
* Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:25:54 EDT
* Sender: owner-laser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Generally it refers to stuff like the following:

Bending a mast so far the sail loses all its "return" shape.

The sail no longer has a pocket and the battens flop to leeward.

Thee is a huge ridge between the middle of the sail and the clew which
becomes the "hardest" part of the sail which stays closest to the wind with all
the rest of the sail blowing to leeward.

Maybe that helps??

On boats like J-22 and J-24 the over tensioning of the backstay especially
combined with lots of vang, mainsheet and a relatively flat sail causes
inversion. In overpowering conditions the guys with the loud ragging mains are
often the ones who are inverting their mains. Those who manage to always keep
their battens pointing the right way have more control and can still punch up
through waves.

says me.

Fred
-----------------------------
Website for all answers: www.laser.org
 
With you weight (unless you are very short) you should be able to keep the boat upright. I suspect that your "tight" gunningham is not tight enough. The metal ring should be touching the boom or even go below. Rig both sides of the gunningham primary line to the same side of the boom to allow it go lower.
That should help. Gunningham flattens i.e. depowers the top of the sail which also has the biggest leverage to tilt your boat leeward. The wind is also stronger up there. If this is not enough, pull the vang really tight. I don't think you could have the muscle to pull it too tight. These combined should help.
Radial sail has a bigger draft than standard i.e. I do not agree with the suggestion to leave the outhall very loose. Having the bottom of the sail very "baggy" will actually have a negative effect on your pointing ability. It is more forgiving on the steering though. Loose outhall also moves the center of power backwards (when vang and gunningham are tight) which creates a tendency for the boat to turn up to wind. Especially if the boat is not flat.

Oh yeah, and hike with straight legs and loose hiking strap. This will allow you to go further out to gain more leverage.
 
JMU said:
With you weight (unless you are very short) you should be able to keep the boat upright.

I'm 5'6", 1.68 meters, which I'd think is average for a Radial sailor. I also can hike straight legged if I concentrate, and that's what I was doing on said day. The first thing I'm going to do is mark my boom for the 1 fist/2 fist bag in the sail thing. Sounds like Dr. Seuss! Then I guess I'll try a little of everything, since I'm getting TOTALLY conflicting advice.

Now if I mark the boom for the Radial, how good will those markings be for the Standard sail? Should I take two different colored markers, or will one do?

Merrily

P.S. I don't think those magazine articles are online, since they are from current issues. The Winter 2005 Laser Sailor may eventually be posted at Laser.org, so keep an eye on that.
 
mattsterett said:
Well whatever you do, "traveller a little loose" in those conditions is a bad idea. Get it tight.

OK! I'll try your advice first, since it's way different from what I was doing that didn't work. I also made a chart for myself from Ryan Minth's article. I assume that the instructions that he's giving are for beating, right?

Also, in your downwind sailing instructions you said to put some vang on as you gybe--the amount you'd put on for a reach. How much is that?

Merrily
 
Yeah, in over 25 knots I try to put a little more vang on when I gybe (I do this because I am more confident in my gybes with more vang even though it migth be slightly slower), but in under 20 I think it would be more of a problem. I think I pull the vang on until it is perpendicular with the mast.
 

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