Pointing higher?

Hi,

Does anyone have a tip to point a bit higher - say you are about 50m from the WW mark and you reckon you could make it without tacking if you could only get a couple more degrees of point!
I'm guessing you can adjust your vang and/or cunni and/or outhaul and/or something else (heel, sheet etc.) but may lose some speed temporarily - any ideas please.

Thanks

Depending on windspeed, the following will help you point higher for short periods of time. Not sure about 10 boatlengths, but for sure 5-7 boatlengths... so much depends on wind and wave conditions.

1. pull boom up 3-5 inches from leeward trav eye (grab the boom and pull to windward - it will move and should stay in place unless your trav. is supertight) - works very well in light to just hiking breeze
2. Ease vang so it is just slack with mainsheet in normal position (allows a touch more leech tension)
3. Ease cunningham - (allows more leech tension)
4. Keep boat as flat as possible and concentrate on steering

49208 said:

Depending on windspeed, the following will help you point higher for short periods of time. Not sure about 10 boatlengths, but for sure 5-7 boatlengths... so much depends on wind and wave conditions.

1. pull boom up 3-5 inches from leeward trav eye (grab the boom and pull to windward - it will move and should stay in place unless your trav. is supertight) - works very well in light to just hiking breeze

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Is that legal? I thought that the boom could only be pulled to initiate a tack or gybe. Willing to be proved wrong though, every day's a school day!

Al.

this takes pracitce or you will lose all boat speed, but in light winds with no/little waves heeling the boat to windward just a little bit, acts like the foils on a plane and lifts the boat

Al Black said:

Is that legal? I thought that the boom could only be pulled to initiate a tack or gybe. Willing to be proved wrong though, every day's a school day!

Al.

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Absolutely legal - it's not pumping. (and you can't do it with the mainsheet, you have to literally put your hand on the boom and pull it so the block moves on the trav.)

There is a bit in the Rooster DVD about heeling to windward. What happens is you heel to windward and then push the tiller away so that you stay in a straight line. Pushing the tiller away changes the waterflow on the hull and this creates a windward push on the centreboard. However after this segment Steve does say that this is very hard to do in a laser and he is shown sailing without doing this.

Thanks for these suggestions.
The boom and controls adjustments make sense - although now I'm wondering if it wouldnt be a bad idea to try beating with the boom pulled in board to point higher for the whole leg. Maybe this causes excessive heeling pressure if wind builds up and is ultimately slow??

But if it works for several boat lengths so you can round the mark without tacking, that answers my question, thanks.

Heeling to windward - I've tried this several times but only ever felt good about it on one occasion. Its very hard to keep the speed going when heeled to ww and you have to work the rudder a bit. You'd have to do speed trials with a buddy to be sure its worth it!!

PlaneSailing said:

Heeling to windward - I've tried this several times but only ever felt good about it on one occasion. Its very hard to keep the speed going when heeled to ww and you have to work the rudder a bit. You'd have to do speed trials with a buddy to be sure its worth it!!

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The heeling to windward works by changing the hull shape in the water, generating a force perpendicular to the hull in the plane of the water surface to windward. I does not make you point higher - you point the same. The hull lift pulls you to windward thus your direction of travel through the water changes not where you are pointing.

Of course you do not get something for nothing so expect to slow down a bit which will affect the apparent wind a bit, etc.

Ian

Deimos said:

It does not make you point higher - you point the same. The hull lift pulls you to windward thus your direction of travel through the water changes not where you are pointing.

Ian

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Ok. I was working on the principle that you are trying to induce leehelm by heeling to ww, thus you're pushing the tiller away from you and pointing higher. Sounds a bit iffy, I suppose. If I understand you, you are saying you "crab" sideways to windward? Would be good to do some trials with a buddy of equal abilities (or inabilities) and see if the ww heeler outperforms the flat-lw heeler

49208 said:

2. Ease vang so it is just slack with mainsheet in normal position (allows a touch more leech tension)
3. Ease cunningham - (allows more leech tension)

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Can you help me understand?

How does easing the vang allow more leach tension? Seams to me the opposite would be true.

I can undestnad how easing the cunningham would create more leach tension relative to the belly of the sail, but that is not really what you said. A more basic question is why does more leach tension improve pointing?

Thanks for your help

"ease vang = more leech tension"

What he means is that if you ease the vang tension, then bring the blocks back to the same position using the main sheet, the force applied to the sail will be more along the leech - from the rear main sheet block - (rather than from the vang block position), so the leech will be tighter.
As to why more leech tension means better pointing - I'll leave that to someone else. I have heard that the laser sail is naturally quite hooked at the trailing edge - so disturbing airflow off the leech. Maybe more leech tension flattens it and gives better flow ?
Regarding pulling the boom in slightly - this is related to a question I asked a while back. Why is it that having the sail/traveller block right on the edge of the boat provides the optimum speed/vmg on a laser. Was Bruce that good a boat/sail designer ? I can understand why you might want the sail pulled block to block for correct shape, but if you could hold that shape, what sheeting position would give best vmg ? Given that most people say to make sure the sail is right out - on the gunnel, I suspect that if you could get it a bit further out, it might be better ? Radial sailors certainly seem to sail with the sail eased a bit, not block to block and just outside the gunnel.