So this is my first summer sailing lasers and I'm still figuring things out. Right now I'm just borrowing a friends boat once in a while to sail on which means I'm generally out sailing by myself (he uses it on race night so I never get to race) and have nobody to compare my sailing against. Because of this I have two questions which probably are simple but I can't figure them out.
How tight do I make the hiking strap? I know for downwind one is suppose to make it uber tight so that they can hook their leg under it and move with the boat but for upwind I can't figure it out. As it isn't my boat the hiking strap is set for the way the other guy likes it which seems way to loose for me. Is it fine that I crank it as tight as it will go and then never loosen it? Is this really just kind of a what ever is comfortable setting?
How am I suppose to sail downwind? Right now I let the sail out to about 80 degrees, cleat it, then sail so that the sail stays mostly full (maybe 150 off the wind). Other than trying to keep the boat from rolling back and forth it seems like I'm not doing much on the downwind legs. I've also tried sailing by the lee but I haven't really noticed an improvement so I'm probably doing that wrong as well.
How tight do I make the hiking strap? I know for downwind one is suppose to make it uber tight so that they can hook their leg under it and move with the boat but for upwind I can't figure it out. As it isn't my boat the hiking strap is set for the way the other guy likes it which seems way to loose for me. Is it fine that I crank it as tight as it will go and then never loosen it? Is this really just kind of a what ever is comfortable setting?
How am I suppose to sail downwind? Right now I let the sail out to about 80 degrees, cleat it, then sail so that the sail stays mostly full (maybe 150 off the wind). Other than trying to keep the boat from rolling back and forth it seems like I'm not doing much on the downwind legs. I've also tried sailing by the lee but I haven't really noticed an improvement so I'm probably doing that wrong as well.