Body position while sailing by the lee

C

Chainsaw

Brmmm Brmmm
Where can I find video footage of sailing by the lee in heavy weather and waves - surfing conditions?

Today I found that the best way for me is to be more or less at the middle of the cockpit on both my knees (no, not praying :rolleyes: )

I can throw my wieght around quickly in any direction, forward back or make slight trim adjustments and pop onto the windward coaming as I come back onto a reach easily enough. With this method I'm always facing forward, have good periferal vision and my body isn't trying to twist into a knot with the knee up or knee down method, neither do I have a knee or thigh stopping my upper torso moving quickly to either side...

but i'm sure I look like a deranged breakdancing midget. It doesn't seem to stop me going fast, but could I be going faster, and is it halting progress of my by the lee technique?

What is the "official" body positioning for the above conditions?

The only footage i've seen is of a rooster sailor s-curving on flat water and he seems to spend his time on the windward coaming. (as you would)

Should the techniques change for the waves or should I be able to sit to windward happily in any conditions?

Am I momentarily stuck in the middle of the boat though neglect of some other by the lee trimming matter?


any trade secrets glady accepted
 
At 6' 2" and close to 200 lbs I find that keeping my forward leg up in a normal sitting position and my aft leg down on its knee and wrapped under the hiking strap help keep me in the boat and able to move my weight to respond to waves and puffs. The biggest problem I used to have sitting in a standard position was falling out of the boat in a sudden leeward roll. With my leg hooked under the strap I can stay in the boat and move around easier to adjust. I do keep my weight forward as well and move aft once on a wave.
 
I'd echo pretty much Rob's technique (I'm also over 6' tall).

The key to keep the ability to move around and shift your bodyweight to respond as the boat moves. This becomes really important as you get the boat rolled over to weather so the sail's CE is right above the centerline. It's more stable wrt weather/lee helm, but it always feels very unstable to me in the roll direction; I find I'm continuously shifting my weight side to side to adjust the helm feel and turn the boat up or down, as well as damping any rolls that might start, and just keeping the mast upright.

I have to admit some trepidation about hooking my foot under the hiking strap (I do it sometimes...). I have this image of getting hooked in the boat as is rolls over and twisting my ankle or knee (or just getting trapped). It's never happened to me (and I've death-rolled and near rolled many times!), so it's probably an unjustified fear.

Cheers,

Geoff S.
 
You've got to be light on your feet so you can shift your weight left-to-right quickly to avoid death-rolling. I would advise keeping one foot on each side of the cockpit. You also need to be able to move your weight aft FAST if you catch that wave just right.
 
Saw-if your talking of sailing by the lee, meaning sail out to 90-100 degrees in light air to keep the sail out kind of sailing by the lee, I would not do that in heavy air, like 17+ in those winds you should be able to plane and S-care, no need for it
 
Ross B said:
Saw-if your talking of sailing by the lee, meaning sail out to 90-100 degrees in light air to keep the sail out kind of sailing by the lee, I would not do that in heavy air, like 17+ in those winds you should be able to plane and S-care, no need for it
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Once planning at full speed and by the lee you have no choice but to turn almost straight downwind. But that's because the apparent wind has moved forward, and although you are facing DDW, the tell tails still read by the lee. Those conditions last only as long as there is constant wind speed. Soon as the gust finishes, you either have to head up to a reach to maintain speed or bear away to by the lee again to gain speed - depending on your postioning in the waves. Of course no one controls the wind gusts. So use of the vang is important to depower while by the lee as well as using the mainsheet. Otherwise, although you have no risk of a death roll, weather helm can become momentarily overwhelming, and slow. :eek:

But you are right: If you are in conditions where you can reach and surf down waves in a more or less constant blow, you can often turn dead downwind while surfing and gain enough speed to pop over a wave in a lull and surf until the wind speed returns, no need for by the lee, no risk of Death roll. But you can't maintain your VMG using that method on the downwind leg. You'll always travel to leeward. It's only good for fast directional adjustments on the reaching leg.

(this is provided the course is set for those conditions. Sometimes they aren't, and It can be a bit sad knowing that a fast course has been 'depowered'.)

I'll go grab the rooster sailing footage and show you what I see...
 
First bear in mind we're talking about high winds, and waves.




here we have rooster sailor X in a Europe, sailing by the lee:

pic3YY.jpg



Nowhere near the windward coaming, and on his knees. Even though it’s a Europe, it behaves the same as a laser, who knows why, just lucky for this thread cause it’s the only good pics I can find.



Here he is again shifting his bodyweight aft, still on his knee/s:

200respic24thdim.jpg





Here he is again about to roll to windward, who knows why, maybe to prove a training point, maybe because he didn’t change to by the lee fast enough or far enough. This is what happens if you don’t turn fast enough, or leave too much power in your sail. You still won’t death roll, but you take on a slight lean to windward. Notice the helm is straight:

pic5YY.jpg


No sitting on the windward coaming here. He’s on both knees and can use his bodyweight to trim the boat happily until he makes a change. It could be that conditions exist where this is momentarily unavoidable, even if you are a rooster training sailor, and not just a learner, like me.




Here he is just about to bear away, sitting on the coaming:

pic6bearawayYY.jpg


If he turns fast enough, he won’t be swimming in a few seconds time. But it seems to me that he can’t stay there. He has to move inboard pretty quickly to his knees. The previous pics seem to suggest this is true.



Here is Rooster sailor X, S-curving in the laser video footage:

http://www.roostersailing.com/articles/LBAaT.mpg

notice that on the bear away, he comes off the windward coaming and drops to his knees to throw his upper torso to leeward to trim the boat flat. He can’t stay on the coaming and this is not heavy weather or surfing waves. Also it looks like he is turning to prove a training point and not to match any particular waves. In large waves, the period of surfing is increased. (obviously)


Body trim by the lee seems to be related to sail trim and boat handling (hardly surprising)

These conditions exist if you do not gybe around the (imaginary) wing mark. Haven’t experimented gybing first yet. If you beat me too it, let me know what happened. That would obviously change your angle to the waves and which tack you approached the leeward mark on and your right to room. I’ve tried gybing at the leeward mark before and it isn’t pretty, but it’s ok if you have a good lead or are so far behind no one else is around. You wouldn’t want to try it in a mid fleet pile up.

With practice and attention to sail trim and boat handling, I think it’s theoretically possible that you can perform the bear away and maintain the windward coaming while by the lee and during the transition to the reach. I haven’t done it yet, so if you beat me too it, tell me how cold the water was.

The reason I think it’s possible is that if you leave the vang at a reach position and go into a gybe situation, there is a point where the wind flow drags the clew of the sail downwards violently. Of course you lose a lot of speed doing that. But if you could learn to bring the boat to almost that position while on the windward coaming, enough to hold your weight up, and do it fast enough and use the vang more than the mainsheet to trim the by the lee sail, it might work. That position would be only slightly by the lee. Theoretically, you’d be smoother through the transition, more in control, and faster.

And you wouldn’t hurt your knees.

There’s a gale warning today so I’m not keen to try it just now.

Possible? Who’s already done it?
 
Just one related but slightly off topic comment too:

There's a thread here on swiftcord or something like that and as a result I changed the rope on my vang to 4mm dyneema . I previously had 4mm spectra on the boom end pulley system and 5mm vectran on the mast end.

the results in increased feel and adjustment performance were so drastic that it was like I now had a vang and before I had some kind of washing line pulley system.
 
Ross B said:
I would not do that in heavy air, like 17+ in those winds you should be able to plane and S-care, no need for it
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Actually, the whole point of sailing by-the-lee (BTL) is that it gives you the freedom to S-curve down/across the waves/course without having to gybe.

Say you're cruising on a broad-reach to right side of the course, and you see some waves or whatever that make you want to head over to the left. You just bear away to a broad-reach BTL, catch the waves and fly along that way until you decide to head back to the right. Just turn back to a regular broad-reach and you're good. I've seen people switch from BTL to regular on every other wave.

Checkout the Rooster video. Awesome stuff.

I was just out this weekend practicing my BTL/regular transitions in 15-18 kn winds (and the 2' lumps that pass for waves here inland). Great fun!

Cheers,

Geoff S.
 
well yea of course you sail by the lee for seconds at a time while s-carving

but I mean in heavy air, you don't stay by the lee the whole time, like you would in 2 knots of breeze
 
GeoffS said:
Typically, you sail BTL about the same amount of time as regular, just depending on which way you want to be going at the moment.
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This is true. Its all about catching the waves and riding them down. You heat up to find a wave and bear away to ride it down. Once you are surfing/planeing all the pressure comes off the sail and rig which allows for the "big ease" on the main sheet to adjust for going by the lee. this is also where you'll get the leach of the sail "flick" and can get into rule 42 trouble. Do not ease the sail out past 90 degees as it becomes wasted effort. At most and only in light air you might go to 110 degrees only to allow the boom to stay out and the sheet does not drag in the water.
 
just grabbed this from a forum further down the site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1tu0YhVSzA

at around 4mins:04sec and 6mins:25secs there is some footage that looks like it could be by the lee that shows the sailor on the weather coaming. However, he is in a radial, which would show the same effect as a full rig in lighter air. You can sit to weather in a full rig in light to med winds as it is.
 
I don't think you have anywhere near enough speed of movement if both your knees are on the deck. One knee up at least.

Running fast in waves involves too much movement for a two-knees down position. Even if you can get your torso leaning over to keep the boat at the right heel, your body is then out of balance. If you have your upper body vertical and in balance, you seem to be able to have greater speed and range of movement. This is important when you consider the rudder should not be used in such conditions.

When Erik Stibbe is coaching world champs like Blackburn and Austin (former Youth world champ) he sits behind with a whistle, blowing it every time they use the rudder to steer. Such control is not possible (IMHO) on your knees and from memory neither Ben or Michael use the position,I'm pretty sure they're both one knee up. In this position the bum is normally in the air or sliding around, not static.

I'm getting back into serious Lasering again in a few weeks, it'll be nice to get back out to join the Sydney training routine again. :)
 
I agree! you almost need to be stood up for the mobility. Obviously this isnt practical, so an almost-crouch is needed. this gives the option of dropping the leeward knee momentarily (as can be seen in the video) when transitionind to BTL, and pushing up onto the coaming when going the other way. (before anyone says it, I mean at the end of the transition, not to initiate the turn!)

Once fully BTL or reaching, the boat is totally stable, so you could sit if you wanted, although then you lose the quick response to waves etc which GeoffS mentioned earlier.

thats pretty much how I do it, although for some odd reason, it seems a lot harder this year than last....Time to hit the gym again methinks! ;)
 
I'm just going to repeat what a lot of people here have said: what i do in pretty much any condition is sit on the windward side with my front knee up and my back led wrapped under the hiking strap. I tighten up my hiking strap a lot so that I am really solid in that poisition, and I only use my upper body to steer. Bear in mind not to use the tiller too much, that is slow. In order to be fast in heavy air you need to surf down those waves using S turns... lean toward the sail to go up, lean out to bear off... good luck!
 
vtgent49 said:
Borrowed from a SA thread:

robert scheidt http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4270530856689008464



tobias schadewaldt http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9027584120271069626
Click to expand...


Excellent upwind footage in the first link. I see he hits the windward mark with his boom and they try to edit it out. :D

Nice trick in there to experiment with in approaching the mark. Looks fast too, and should be.

He really works that tiller. It looks slow with all the drag it must produce, but obviously not.

First downwind leg you get a bit of stronger wind BTL, but there isn’t big enough waves or wind to see any change in technique (perhaps there isn't any?). I use the same kind of position as him for that strength of wind (...he says modestly:rolleyes: ).

He does a lot of rolling around doesn’t he? I wonder how much he can call steering by body weight and just natural roll from waves and how much is “pushing the limits”? Anyone know if he frequently gets called up about it?

In the second link there's still not enough wind or waves. It's damn near calm water. They all seem to be up near the board. Do that in waves and you'll go down the ol’ mine! :D

All good footage though. Will re-watch those a couple thousand times. It never occurred to me to check google vids for footage. :cool: or S.A.

We've got about 25kn here this morning. As long as it doesn't do something silly, I'll get out for a sail/swim.
 
Keep your knees off the bottom of the cockpit. I still sometimes see myself doing this though in a blow. I have been doing a lot of squats at the gym to improve my mobillity particularlly this position. The best way to practice and find what works best is to go out in a blow and practice. You will either get tired of flipping or learn how to stay mobile. When your knees are in the cockpit floor and a 30 mph puff hits you, the boat gets really squirlly and most people death roll. I tend to balance the boat with body weight but mostly main sheet. When the boat rolls to weather like im death rolling, a swift pump of the main seems to bring it back.
 
jamesfreedman said:
When your knees are in the cockpit floor and a 30 mph puff hits you, the boat gets really squirlly and most people death roll.
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Yeah, the finer problems of gusty wave conditions are there for sure. The problem was that I found the only way to stay in control during gusts was to be on my knees. And i want to get off them if possible.

The other issues being:

1) beginning of surf on wave plus heavy gust = exagerated natural roll to "windward" (opposite side of boom when BTL)

if i stayed on the windward coaming, I'd be swimming. So how to change technique/trim so I can?

2) boat not planning, but BTL, then hit by heavy gust.

instance massive weather helm before boat reaches the plane, much like on a reach. OK once up and going, not good while not. The option is to bear away as soon as the gust hits, but carefully, so you don't death roll. With the apparent wind moving forward, the bear away become considerable and the weather helm sticks around for a while - not fast. But sail trim must be able to depower such gusts too. More practice needed.

3) being far enough back so nose does not dig into waves as you pop over them. When gust plus surfing speed surpasses wave speed, and apparent wind has moved forward, BTL angle becomes almost straight downwind - slap bang into the backs of waves. So BTL is no longer the fastest wave avoidance technique. Unless you can get the nose up enough. Which is difficult, because the nose tends to naturally dive downwind. As above, the fastest wave avoidance is a reach, but you're fast going off course too! :rolleyes:

anyway, enough yapping for this morning, time for practice.
 
Well, slap me with a wet jandle, but I'm incorporating two knees down into my by the lee repertoire.

It's just too useful not too.

Basically you do it when you're pushing the limit of the widest angle, so not really necessary all the time.

Other options are back leg down under strap, front leg up. But there is no natural progression to in or out of this position.

Or there is being on your toes all the time with is ok but not all that stable and a little tiring.

today I could sit on the windward coaming once I had started planing and surfing downwind and the apparent wind had moved forward. But since I was driving into the back of waves that way it isn't a longterm choice.

Overall I will continue with my laser based style of breakdancing till I learn something else.
 
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