How NOT to stuff the bow?

Rob B

Rob B

Well-Known Member
Is aggressively steering through the waves the only way to keep from stuffing the bow into the back of the next wave while in surfing conditions? It really sucks when all that water comes over the deck and fills up the cockpit!

I've also tried throwing my weight back as far as possible, but I have not had too much success in getting the bow up enough to get over the back of the next wave.
 
I think I need to be more specific. I'm talking about short, steep stuff like you see on an inland lake when it blows 20. However, it might only be blowing 15. The resaon the chop gets so nasty is because there is a tide working against the wind direction. So, you're not in enough wind to take you over the top of the stuff, but the distance between swells is so short that if you get down the front side of one and bear away for the ride you'll stuff it into the next one.

I think the key is to choose your "set" so to speak.

You are right that the high road will keep the nose from stuffing. The key is where to find the spot to bear away.

Sounds like I've got to be more aggressive on the s-curves.
 
Generally? You will hate this answer but..

You need to go play in the waves until you get the hang of it.

Around here, Corpus Christi Bay in a blow is a serious test of one kind of "finding a path through the waves." None of the Corpus skills seem to help on Lake Ray Hubbard, Eagle Mountain or Lake Travis. The various lengths between waves demand entirely differnet technique.

I do think as a general rule you can play the waves downwind with some of these moves as tools:
1. dead down is the slow down mode where you look around and see what paths are about to be available...I look at it as a football running back gathering blockers in front of him or a basketball player slowing down and waiting for the team to help with the fast break..If a clear path shows TAKE IT IMMEDIATELY but be prepared to be unarmed for the next wave.
2. Heating up by heading more by the lee or more onto a closer reach is a choice determined by teh angle of the waves. Waves rarely are exactly square to the wind and
 
2. Heating up by heading more by the lee or more onto a closer reach is a choice determined by teh angle of the waves. Waves rarely are exactly square to the wind and[/QUOTE]

Fred, did you go to lunch or did you hit submit reply before you finished.

I'm hanging here!
 
Generally? You will hate this answer but..

You need to go play in the waves until you get the hang of it.

Around here, Corpus Christi Bay in a blow is a serious test of one kind of "finding a path through the waves." None of the Corpus skills seem to help on Lake Ray Hubbard, Eagle Mountain or Lake Travis. The various lengths between waves demand entirely differnet technique.

I do think as a general rule you can play the waves downwind with some of these concepts as tools:
1. dead down is the slow down mode where you look around and see what paths are about to be available... look at it as a football running back gathering blockers in front of him or a basketball player slowing down and waiting for the team to help with the fast break..If a clear path shows TAKE IT IMMEDIATELY but be prepared to be unarmed for the next wave.
2. Heating up by heading more by the lee or more onto a closer reach is a choice determined by the angle of the waves. Waves rarely are exactly square to the wind and the best downwind course includes choosing whether to be by the lee or broad reaching.
3. Sometimes you need to gybe.NOW!!!
4. Sometimes a gybe is wrong, dumb, slow and loses many boat lengths
5. The transition from broad reach to by the lee includes some dead downwind ( slow) and there better be a huge section of water where you really need to go or youwill not have a way to "pay for" the slow dead down part of the transition.
6. Sailing downhill is fast....less apparent wind though so you lose power
7. Sailing up hill is slow..lots of aparent wind and harder to control the boat
8. The water in the trough is heading back up wind...Maybe the boat is moving over the water OK but the downwind face of the wave has all the "speedy" water which is going your way.
9. Never allow your boat to get to the bottom of a trough unless you are blasting through towards a hole in the wave in front of that trough.
10. Stay out from under those other guys sails.
11. Other boats screw up the waves. Unless you KNOW you are slower than the guy in front of you, hanging on his wave will only let you sail at his speed AND while you are married to his wake he will be using all the rest of the waves to take off and go faster. If you know he is faster, hang on to his wake for as long as you can and then resume doing the best you can until another hotshot blasts by.
12. When sitting in calm water, moving a couple feet fore and aft in the boat doesn't do much for lifting or burying a bow. When the waves are three feet high, moving foreword or back in the boat is just a minor tweak...but it IS handy.
13. Look for small waves on the upwind side of the bigger waves and use those little waves to elevate your bow for the big one.
14. Hiking hard slams the middle of the boat into the water and elevates the bow. Also the sail pushes down when heeled to leeward and lifts when heeled to weather.
15. Sometimes healing the boat to leeward, specially with a flogging sail, can elevate the bow and let the water on top slide off the side rather than flow all the way to the cockpit. Be breif about it; remember; heeled is slow and so is that flogging sail.
16. The instant the current wave is mastered, there are better things to think about..next wave, puffs, other boats, where is the buoy, any hot chicks nearby?
17. Occasionally sit down and write up a list like this for yourself.
18. Ask others about their thoughts.
19. Go sailing and see how much of the list is useful and which parts are total crap.
20. Sail near a bunch of other boats and see which moves cause gain and which really really totally suck.
 
"short chop" yeah we have plenty of that here, but I bet it's different again to what you have. got any video footage? LOL

Seriously though, if you want to bear away BTL and maintain your speed let some vang off till you find an angle to the wave that suits.

this will heel you to windward, and as long as you don't let anymore sheet out, you won't capsize. The windward heel will then help the wave pour off your foredeck instead of turning you into a big fish in a small cockpit tank.

As you acelerae down the face of the first wave, turn slightly downwind to maintain speed and remove weather helm. If this happens to coincide with a gust you'll jumpt the back of the wave in front - with a bit of an unsteady wiggle but there you go.

Bear in mind that the more vang you let off will reduce your VMG, but then smacking into the backs of waves ain't quick either. You'll also have to re apply the vang to come up onto a reach, or maintain a good VMG stright down wind in the previously mentioned flatspot between wave sets. But you'll be lost in the beauty of it all and won't notice you're jumping around like a flea in jar.

If all else fails remember:

when faced with a wall of water - go round it.

the boat is your friend, if it's anywhere near balanced, the waves and the boat and the wind will tell you where to go. Just feel the tiller and read your luff tell tale.
 
PS:

this will only work if you either know when your boom is 90degrees to centre line of boat, or if you tie a stopper knot in your sheet at 90degrees boom angle.
 
Thanks Fred and saw. I've got the 90 degree thing down solid for DW trim. I'll employ the other stuff in the next practice session.
 
Got it!!! It took a few weeks for the conditions to return for me to get another try, but yesterday it came around.

I was flying through the waves, over them, through them, down them, but never "stuffed" any. The trick was the aggressive driving even taking big dives by the lee with an almost uncomfortable roll to weather with the boat, but turning the bow to a heeled angle into the the back of the next wave was huge. It sliced right through without a bit of water coming over the deck.

This was true "s-curving".
 
Or you could use a shield like they do on sunfish right infornt of the cockpit if your sitting in the cockpit it looks like an a and is about an inch high In this picture its green
sunfish-fnd_1813.jpg
they work extremely well and you can go strate into the wind and not get iany water in the cockpit.
 
captainJack987 said:
Or you could use a shield like they do on sunfish right infornt of the cockpit if your sitting in the cockpit it looks like an a and is about an inch high In this picture its green
sunfish-fnd_1813.jpg
they work extremely well and you can go strate into the wind and not get iany water in the cockpit.
Click to expand...



That wont do jack when you're sailing a laser like it should be sailed
 
captainJack987 said:
Or you could use a shield like they do on sunfish right infornt of the cockpit if your sitting in the cockpit it looks like an a and is about an inch high In this picture its green
sunfish-fnd_1813.jpg
they work extremely well and you can go strate into the wind and not get iany water in the cockpit.
Click to expand...

How was English class?
 
Your hilarious, ha ha ha that was a knee slapper ha ha ha If you could have heard me say that in person you would have noticed my sarcastic tone. Somtimes I get in a hurry. Anyway in my post above i ment continuing on your regular course not sailing into the wind i ment sailing into the waves. And the wave deflector would keep them out of the cockpit.
 
Once again, If your sailing a laser in heavy air, that thing wont do jack.

Also, to restate what Ross said, Stop posting in the TLF during english class.

EDIT: Sick ride for the Baltic Ross!
 
This idea is no where near class legal, but I think he knows that. I prefer to sail the boat correctly than try to make it look like a sunfish, yuk!
 
I no its not class legal but I was just throwing it out there, I wouldn't do it to my boat. stop moaning about my "English" sk8ingsailor and Ross, don't you have better things to do then critique someones posts on the internet?
 
no not really, but would it kill you to use a comma every now and then?
 
There you go again,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, happy,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I'll even through in a period for you.
 
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