i keep deathrolling

C

coolsailer

New Member
I was racing in heavy winds, 20-25 knots, and on the downwind i kept deathrolling. Can you tell me why? And what do i do to fix it?

Spanks,
 
that happends to everyone. Don't worry the more you sail and practice the better you will get. I find if you lock your back leg into the hiking strap it makes you much mroe stable. Also with practice you will get quicker. You will get to the point where you can save it when most of your daggerboard is out of the water.
 
this happens to everyone. the way to stop it is to have your aft leg on the opposite side of the cockpit. that way you can easily stabilise the boat as you start to roll. the general rule when running in a laser is "if your knees dont hurt youre not doing it right"
 
one tip is to not have alot of vang on but have enough so you boom is not going up and making it so your sail has a taco shape.
 
jamesfreedman said:
Check out this article that talks about your question and has a few tips on it:

http://www.roostersailing.com/articles/4TH%20DIM%20WEB%20ARTICLE.HTML

This is really good stuff even if you think you know how to sail a Laser downwind in a blow.
Click to expand...

Excellent article. The idea that, when you start to deathroll, instead of heading up like everyone taught you, you should be bearing even further off and going deeper by the lee, was hard for me to swallow at first, but it really works. Also, look at the video clips -- when the sailor begins to get deathrolled, he doesn't just sit there and let it happen -- look how agressively he jumps across the cockpit and pushes the gunwale back down.
 
I had a problem rolling downwind, and spent alot of time and energy correcting it. I also got some excellent advice from some of the master sailors in the SF Bay area which I can reduce to four helpful hints.

1. Only lift the daggerboard 1/3 of the way up. It helps with steerage and stablizes the boat.
2. Blow the cunningham. I have no idea why, but having it on makes the boat roll more frequently.
3. Heel the boat to windward, and only move when required.
4. You can have too little vang which also makes the boat roll.
 
papilion said:
2. Blow the cunningham. I have no idea why, but having it on makes the boat roll more frequently.
Click to expand...

Pulling on cunningham, when sailing downwind, leaves the top of the leech open (i.e. the top of the sail rotates so far around that its force, way up where there is the most leverage, is pointing to weather.
 
2. Blow the cunningham...
Click to expand...

Better say: "blow the cunningham with care". During a running, I just remembered I had it strongly trimmed so I quickly blowed it off -- even now, I don't know how it happened but I was swimming in less than a second :-(

May be the real reason was just a ghust, but my feeling was that the cause was blowing the cunningham...

Pedro.
 
Sailing by the lee in heavy air invokes some of the joysticl and control problems encountered by early aviators when they first broke the sound barrier. - The right response was counter intuitive based on conventional flying wisdom.

The tiller response required (push/pull the tiller downhill as you roll) needs to be syncronised with appropriate sheet trim. With the boom to port side-if you roll to starboard - pull the tiller to starbourd but also sheet in. With the boom to port-if you roll to port push the tiller to port and sheet out a bit.

To get your head around sailing by the lee it is probably good to visualise the sail more as a spinnaker - but a spinnaker rigged so you can only adjust the guy (brace to pole) with the sheet permanently cleated. So to 'ease the sheet you have to turn the boat while trimming the guy so it stays at optimum set. Doing one without the other can be nasty if the correction required is large and sudden.

If you put some telltails on the sail say 18" from the leech and focus on these while by the lee- they will remind you to invert your thinking and reaction response.
 
Also one tip is decide whether to run with the wind going luff to leech, or go by the lee. If you dither between the two, running or going by the lee, the wind is flicking around making the air flow and consequently the boat very unstable.

And perhaps make sure your mainsheet is not too long so the boom doesn't shoot too far forward.
Mostly - have fun with a big smile!
 
coolsailer said:
I was racing in heavy winds, 20-25 knots, and on the downwind i kept deathrolling. Can you tell me why? And what do i do to fix it?

Spanks,
Click to expand...

Simple useless answer?
Either head up and sit out or head down and sit on the "leeward" side.

realistic answer?

Sail in lighter wind where you can muscle yourself out of trouble and practice your boat balancing.

Do a bunch of downwind runs. You need to learn how far out the sail goes before the forces change from causing the boat to tip to leeward and causing the bat to tip to weather.

You need to sail dead down wind and alternately slightly up to weather and slightly up to leeward and feel the transition.

You need to sit in the middle of the boat and feel the changes between forces that tip to weather and those forces that tip the boat to leeward.

Try sailing downwind with your butt firmly stuck to the cockpit floor. You need to know how to sail with no help from the body movement so your body movement can be used to enhance some forces rather than counteract them.

Then you need to see how increasing velocity changes when the transition from leeward force to windward force happens.

Huh?? I mean that if you set your boat for perfect balance with you sitting in the middle and sailing as straight down wind as you can and the wind blowing 10 knots....

if the wind increases to 12 knots the sail will stretch and push a bit foreword.

( the exact same sail setting that is perfect in 8 knots will slam your mast in to weather in 15.)

The sail in more front of the mast makes the boat heal to weather more.

You can trim the sail or hike to leeward.

You need to fiddle around with sail trim and the balance until you just ride the thing naturally.

You will learn to react to a bit too much weather heel by trimming a bit and maybe leaning to leeward. You will very soon after that learn to yank the sheet and stomp vigorously to leeward just as you want a bit of power to tip over the crest of a wave.

Then you will get all excited and as you are flying downwind in 25 knots you will throw the rig back and forth just to enjoy your total control of the situation...

.

Until you miss one and everybody sails by.


Just like any other balancing act, you must learn what causes failure so you can master control.

My experience says that little punk kids who go out in huge winds and swim a lot are the ones who become the totlaly in control super stars a few years later.

Go sail a bunch and it will come to you!!!
 
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