Faster reaching....anyone??

M

madyottie

Apprentice
Hi all.
Yesterday we had a laser open at our club. It was blowing up to around 40knots :cool: , and one leg was a close reach.
Most of us were going about the same speed on this leg, but one boat managed to come from about 5th through to first on that leg! And on every other lap, he kicked our collective A....s on that reach! Fortunately he wasn't that flash on the beats and runs, so we didnt end up far apart by the end, but my question is.......

How did he do that???:confused:

Its not like we're novices, shown by the fact that no-one in the front of the fleet capsized, or indeed really came close to it. As the guy flew by me (I was second at the time) I tried to see what he was doing, but couldn't spot anything obvious. I think I was the second fastest on those legs, usually getting past at least one boat.

I did notice that I seemed to have a lot of helm, although in the waves I couldn't really keep the boat any flatter. I was playing the main lots, and basically doing whatever I could to try and keep up with him!

Any ideas? :rolleyes: Anyone?? :confused: Help!!!:eek:
 
helm certainly is part of the problem and so is the necessity to keep the boat flat eliminate heel by playing the sheet or depowering the sail, in gust sail deeper on come up in the lulls. When sailing in waves play the waves (don't try to play them all though be picky) and during this all use the sails and hull to steer the boat. The boatwhisperer dvd (downwind) by steve cockerill and the extra sections on the bass straight crossing by michael blackburn will give you some excellent insight in how this is best achieved.
 
The weather helm is from the hydrodynamic forces being unbalanced, basically pull the board up a couple more inches. In winds that strong, your board should be up a couple or three inches even upwind.

As for his blowing by you, I would guess that he was surfing the considerable waves you mentioned. I've had experiences like that (not in a laser) where I was racing people who've never seen waves much before, and it makes a huge difference as to wether you are just riding them or actively surfing them. It also can get your speed from 1/2 the wind speed up to 2/3 the windspeed, which is what most wind-generated waves travel at.
 
Thanks! I must confess that I haven't yet seen the cockerill downwind dvd, although I do intend to get it eventually. any ideas on use of kicker on a tight reach like that?
The waves were just forward of the beam, which coupled with an almost flat boat meant I had water coming aboard quite often, so i decided the slight heel to allow the waves to lift the hull instead of breaking over it was the lesser of two evils on this occasion.

Another interesting point to be raised here now.... I noticed that the leading radial sailors were keeping their boards almost all the way down on the flat run!! do you think this was just an oversight, or could there have been some other reason? Personally mine was pretty much fully up, to the point where it would just clear the boom if I needed to gybe without warning.

Oh, and I had a shocking reminder of the importance of keeping tangles out of the mainsheet..... I rounded the top mark for the last time in second place and dumped the main to bear off, only to find that it was neatly knotted around the toestrap!! the resulting loss of a place cost me a podium place overall :-( Not from swimming, but from running with the main strapped in!
 
I would say kicker on unless you can keep the entirety of the sail drawing, Cunningham on, all the same upwind settings.

With the waves from that direction (you going into them), I'm assuming that whoever that boat was had the tecnique down for working the boat through the waves.

As for the board, you're correct- give yourself a pat on the back, they're doing it wrong. Summarising from Frank Bethwaite's book, with low boatspeeds you need most of the board in to do its job. As your boatspeed builds, because of the greater force as well as the drag and thus hydrodynamic force equation (drag/force goes up with the velocity squared), you need progressively less board in the water to accomplish the same thing. In 40 kts, you should have the board as high as you can get it while still remaining in control.
 
Work alot with the mainsheet and move your bodyweight to help surfing the waves. Don't have the centerboard all that high up as the boat will get too tippy if you do.
There arn't really any real *tricks* when it comes to reaching, you just have to train alot and get a good feel for which angles are faster and which waves are the best.
 
I have read in a fairly old Laser book that you might want to keep the board down a bit more on a run to avoid death rolling and to stop the boat being too tippy. However, this is just me repeating what I have read and not personal experience (I do not have enough Laser time to have "personal experience" yet)


Ian
 
My experience is that it is way better to keep it a fair bit down, and thats also what I've been told by some of the top sailors over here.
 
Bethwaite's rule assumes that you can stay in control of the boat. That's first priority. I guess better stated it would be have the board as high as you can get while still in control. Reaching, most of the board should be down anyway because you're still going cross-wind.
 
Well, you will be loosing power if you pull it up to high =/
Having the board to high is one of the most common misstakes that lasersailors do.
 
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