Performing a 360 penalty

jbd214

New Member
What is the proper way to perform a 360 and is it different depending on the boat? One of my daughter's Opti coaches told her to always start with the gibe and another one said upwind start with the tack. I am guessing it can't make much of a difference if two experts don't agree on the approach but since I have a Laser would like to discuss this topic for my racing.
 
This "tack first or gybe first" question comes up every now and then in different classes, with no consensus. I think it doesn't really matter as you have to do the same number of tacks and gybes anyway. What does matter is the tactical situation, that is, you should start doing the turns in the direction which takes you away from the closest boats.

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If you receive the penalty going upwind then you tack first because your sail it set up for that. If you have to spin will reaching or going downwind you gybe first.
 
If you receive the penalty going upwind then you tack first because your sail it set up for that. If you have to spin will reaching or going downwind you gybe first.
I don't see any point in that. You sheet in and out the exact same amount no matter where you start and which way you go. (The sail isn't really "set up for tacking" upwind, it's set up for going a straight-line closehauled course.)

However, it may be slightly faster to turn counterclockwise, because that's how you nearly always go around the course and is therefore the "routine" direction. Of course the obligation to keep clear of other boats overrides this easily.

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In breeze when you have vang on you want tack first then let the vang off and gybe. It doesn't matter that much in light air but you won't be able to bear away with your vang on in breeze.
 
Let's assume it is at the upwind mark.

If you gybe first you would have to bear away, gybe, head up, tack, then bear away again. Conversely, you could tack, bear away, then gybe. It seems to me the latter would be faster to do.

Applying the same logic at the leeward mark, you would gybe first, head up, then tack. And of course there are a million other variables.
 
In breeze when you have vang on you want tack first then let the vang off and gybe. It doesn't matter that much in light air but you won't be able to bear away with your vang on in breeze.
So the main difference would be whether you do the tack with the vang tensioned for upwind or downwind. Is either somehow better or worse?

As you need to loosen the vang at some point, wouldn't it be fastest to do it first, before you start changing course?

Let's assume it is at the upwind mark.
Marks are special cases - in your example, in the latter alternative you incorporate the rounding itself into the penalty turn, so you sail a little less distance. But this doesn't apply anywhere else.

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Generally speaking, one wants to do a 360 away from a mark because of traffic and not having any rights
 
You do it in such a way that you lose as little as possible, so there is no right way or wrong way. That will depend on many factors including the other boats around you, you don't want to sail into their path or into their dirty wind. I do agree with LaLi, that doing the gybe first does let you set the boat up prior to starting the turn as you can ease the vang first.

Probably what is more important is timing, I get bothered by those that won't do their turns for 10 minutes, the rule says first reasonable opportunity which really means you should immediately sail to a location out of the way of others and then immediately start start your turns.
 

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