Problems Sailing to Windward

laserchris

New Member
Hi all.......... Went out sailing today in about 15 - 18 knots and although the reaches went well I really struggled with 2 things:

1. At almost every tack the boat stopped dead in irons, took me ages to sort out.

2. I could not keep the boat flat when sailing to windward, it turned into a vicious cycle, gust hit, boat heeled, I eased the sheet but by this time the rudder is a nightmare to keep in right direction so boat slews into the wind, at this point the boat rolls over on top of me so I jump in and so the cycle repeats!!!!! REALLY FRUSTRATING

Can anyone give me some tips on tacking to keep momentum up and also some advice on sailing to windward would great!!!

Another thing....... For these conditions how hard would you put on the kicker, cunno and outhaul???

Cheers, Chris.

:eek::eek::eek:
 
These are common problems, so you're not alone! Firstly with the sail settings, you should be depowering a fair bit in that breeze. How much to depower depends on your weight and the rig you are using, but while you're starting out, the more you depower the better. Just pull everything on hard - once you have the boat handling sorted out you can start looking for more power.

With tacking, you need to have the boat moving well before you enter the tack, and you need to go fairly quickly. Be positive - being too tentative will put you in irons. If you have heaps of vang on, it will help if you ease it a little before tacking - lots of vang increases the chance of stalling.

Reacting to gusts, the standard mantra is ease, hike, trim. Forget the rudder, it all comes down to playing the sheet (a lot) and hiking as hard as you can. From there, it's just practice, practice, practice. It gets easier pretty quickly. The key things to remember are to try and anticipate what the wind is going to do, and react quickly and positively.

Good luck!
 
Good advice so far.

Goodison also emphasizes to push the rudder to the edge of the gunwale to speed up the turn.

RYA Laser Handbook
p. 46
 
Pulling the centre board up 8 to 10cm works well. Because you are going faster the board is more efficient. This allows you to be able to lift it up without sacrificing pointing but reducing heeling. This translates to better speed with less hiking upwind.

Ian
 
In a breeze like that you may need to foot off a little bit instead of trying to point as high as you can.
 
'Forget the rudder, it all comes down to playing the sheet (a lot) and hiking as hard as you can.'

Tony B, thanks for advice but not sure about this bit........... are you saying that if I concentrate on keeping the boat flat then the rudder will nuetralize and not need so much effort to maintain a course??
 
'Forget the rudder, it all comes down to playing the sheet (a lot) and hiking as hard as you can.'

Tony B, thanks for advice but not sure about this bit........... are you saying that if I concentrate on keeping the boat flat then the rudder will nuetralize and not need so much effort to maintain a course??

Hmmm, I didn't explain that very well did I? Sorry!

Yes, the number one focus is to keep the boat flat. You do this by depowering the sail, then hiking and quickly trimming the sheet in response to variations in the wind. With a flat boat, the rudder is largely neutral - the tiller isn't trying to pull itself out of your hand, and the boat tracks straight. Upwind in the Laser, the rudder isn't capable of counteracting the big forces the rig creates, and will only compound the trouble if you try to use it in this way. If you are already heeling, and the boat is trying to turn into the wind, pulling the tiller towards you will only make the boat heel more, if it does anything at all.

In your original post, your sequence was 1. gust hit, 2. boat heeled, 3. ease sheet, and so on. Basically you need to get rid of step 2 - ease the sheet before the boat heels. Then the vicious cycle is broken.
 
My number one piece of advice is...Make sure you're warm, no matter what happens.

My sailing sucked so much more (still sucks, but I'm getting closer to atmospheric pressure) when I was concerned about getting wet and cold. I wasn't hiking hard, I was tentative in the tacks, etc.

As soon as I got booties and a wetsuit, I got consistently better results. Tried it once again without, right back to the tail end of the fleet!

Also, don't ease the sheet. Just head up until you can keep the boat flat. Easing the sheet is just powering up the sail for the first foot or so of sheet.
 
Also, don't ease the sheet. Just head up until you can keep the boat flat. Easing the sheet is just powering up the sail for the first foot or so of sheet.

No, no, no, don't pinch. All pinching does is slow the boat and increase leeway.

Easing sheet will only power up the sail if you don't have enough vang on. In 15-18 knots, you need plenty of vang (and cunningham and outhaul) to depower, and to avoid adding power when you ease sheet.
 
No, no, no, don't pinch. All pinching does is slow the boat and increase leeway.

Easing sheet will only power up the sail if you don't have enough vang on. In 15-18 knots, you need plenty of vang (and cunningham and outhaul) to depower, and to avoid adding power when you ease sheet.

Do you have enough vang on that the boom doesn't rise when you ease? I can't ever get mine so that easing is favorable to pinching.

I'm sure you're right that pinching is bad if you can get your vang set that way.
 
Do you have enough vang on that the boom doesn't rise when you ease? I can't ever get mine so that easing is favorable to pinching.

I'm sure you're right that pinching is bad if you can get your vang set that way.

Yes, enough vang so the boom goes out more than up, at no more than a 45 degree angle.

If you can't get at least this much vang on you need to look at your set up - you can't sail the boat properly without it. You can go up to 15:1 on the vang which should be more than enough to get the required tension, and with boom sleeves you don't need to worry about breaking the boom. Even without the new vang you should be able to get enough tension though.

Back in the old days, we used to go block to block, cleat the sheet then stand on the sheet between the ratchet and the boom before heaving on the vang. Thankfully those days have long gone. I'm feeling old now.
 
Yes, enough vang so the boom goes out more than up, at no more than a 45 degree angle.

If you can't get at least this much vang on you need to look at your set up - you can't sail the boat properly without it. You can go up to 15:1 on the vang which should be more than enough to get the required tension, and with boom sleeves you don't need to worry about breaking the boom. Even without the new vang you should be able to get enough tension though.

Back in the old days, we used to go block to block, cleat the sheet then stand on the sheet between the ratchet and the boom before heaving on the vang. Thankfully those days have long gone. I'm feeling old now.

Hm I was very wrong, thank you for the advice!
 
Do you have enough vang on that the boom doesn't rise when you ease? I can't ever get mine so that easing is favorable to pinching.

I'm sure you're right that pinching is bad if you can get your vang set that way.

If you have the "new" rigging you will not have a problem getting the necessary vang tension. If you do not, then I can understand why you might be having a problem.
 
I dont have the XD rig setup, the boat came with the absolutely original kicker, cunno and outhaul.

I have modified the kicker so it is now a 6:1 system (nowhere near as good as 15:1 but loads more usable than the original 3:1) because of my problems on Sunday I have also ordered cunno and outhaul upgrades to make things a bit easier because I find it next to impossible to make meaningful adjustments on the water.

The last few posts kind of raise the other question I asked at the start of the thread, peaople say to me that in a decent breeze I should be 'vang sheeting', on Sunday I had the kicker block to block and then pulled about another 2 inches of kicker on. Is this enough or would I need to be doing more???????

I didnt notice whether the boom was rising at all (too busy capsizing)!!

:confused::confused::confused:
 
I dont have the XD rig setup, the boat came with the absolutely original kicker, cunno and outhaul.

I have modified the kicker so it is now a 6:1 system (nowhere near as good as 15:1 but loads more usable than the original 3:1) because of my problems on Sunday I have also ordered cunno and outhaul upgrades to make things a bit easier because I find it next to impossible to make meaningful adjustments on the water.

The last few posts kind of raise the other question I asked at the start of the thread, peaople say to me that in a decent breeze I should be 'vang sheeting', on Sunday I had the kicker block to block and then pulled about another 2 inches of kicker on. Is this enough or would I need to be doing more???????

I didnt notice whether the boom was rising at all (too busy capsizing)!!

:confused::confused::confused:

No, 2 inches isn't enough - at 6:1, unless you pull on at least six inches you will be powering up the sail when you dump sheet.

Most of my fleet use standard calibration marks on our vangs and other lines so we can compare settings. It might seem a bit anal, but it does help those post race chats. The info below might be too technical unless you are obsessive like us, but it might help. I'm talking from a standard rig perspective - I think the Radial sailors tend to use more vang, especially in lighter airs.

We call completely released vang 0%, block to block vang 50%, and full vang 100%. It depends on the wave conditions and so on, but I would normally be at about 65-75% in 15-18 knots, and wouldn't be easing sheet unless I had at least 75% vang. The vang blocks are an inch closer together at 75% than at 50%. With 6:1 purchase, this means you would need to pull six inches of line through to achieve this variation. With 15:1, 15 inches.

I tend to use a little less vang than others in my regular fleet (being a touch on the large side at the moment) so if anything I would suggest you go a little harder than this. Be warned though, tacking is much more difficult and stalling more likely if you go beyond 75%, so that might be a good starting point. I'd also suggest playing with your setting ashore before your next sail, just to see the effect of various adjustments on the sail.

Usual IMHO and FWIW type caveats apply. I'm also just finishing my second glass of Friday night red, so I'll blame any mathematical errors on that.
 
Lots of Vang, Cunningham, medium to max outhaul setting

you need to tack faster, as you go into the tack stay hiked out to help turn the boat then quickly switch sides and hike out hard, you want to come out a little lower in your tack to build speed in higher winds, when you're sailing fast it will be easier to keep the boat flat and you won't slip sideways as much.
 
...as you go into the tack stay hiked out to help turn the boat...

Maybe I'm confused in how I tack, but I usually have to come in from my hard-out hiking position to help the boat turn into the tack. Heeling to leeward will help the boat head up. I don't switch sides until after the tack, so that the initial leeward heel on the new tack stops the boat from turning. In heavier air, when I really don't want the boat to capsize on top of me, I switch to the new windward side earlier than in lighter air.
 
Maybe I'm confused in how I tack, but I usually have to come in from my hard-out hiking position to help the boat turn into the tack. Heeling to leeward will help the boat head up. I don't switch sides until after the tack, so that the initial leeward heel on the new tack stops the boat from turning. In heavier air, when I really don't want the boat to capsize on top of me, I switch to the new windward side earlier than in lighter air.

Is there water in your hull? A hull filled with water can be very unstable

you don't want to heel to leeward in heavy air, instead move your shoulders aft and continue to hike, this will pull the bow into the wind. You want to switch sides when the boat is flat and when you've just past head to wind onto the new tack.

Maybe you are hiking hard too soon before the sail has begun to fill, you can't capsize to windward in heavy air if the sail is full. It also might help to ease the sheet a little as you tack to keep the boat flatter.
 
No, my hull is nice and dry.

I guess I should have said it differently. I don't have to come in from hiking to get the boat around, I just choose to do so, in order to use the rudder less.

Moving shoulders aft is a great tip! Thanks! It accomplishes what I try to do, without the increased leeway due to leeward heel.

The timing of my switch from one side to the other was poorly worded as well. I usually don't switch sides until after the sail has filled on the new tack, so I can get an extra pump with my weight transfer. Obviously, in heavy air, waiting for the sail to fill while still on the (new) leeward side is a bad idea, often leading to the boat capsizing on top of me. Is that clearer?
 
No, my hull is nice and dry.

I guess I should have said it differently. I don't have to come in from hiking to get the boat around, I just choose to do so, in order to use the rudder less.

Moving shoulders aft is a great tip! Thanks! It accomplishes what I try to do, without the increased leeway due to leeward heel.

The timing of my switch from one side to the other was poorly worded as well. I usually don't switch sides until after the sail has filled on the new tack, so I can get an extra pump with my weight transfer. Obviously, in heavy air, waiting for the sail to fill while still on the (new) leeward side is a bad idea, often leading to the boat capsizing on top of me. Is that clearer?

You should switch before the sail fills in heavy air, staying on the windward/new leeward side during a tack in strong winds can make the boat roll faster than you can compinsate for, if it keeps happening keep switching sides earlier, it takes good timing to execute a great tack in heavy air, you can quickly accelerate from good tacks in stronger winds, save the roll tacks for light-medium winds,

As the wind increases you can get away with using more helm so don't be afraid to use the tiller to help you turn rather than your weight in heavy air especially if you're hiked to the max,
 

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