Reading flat water

Merrily

Administrator
The best sailors can "read" the water, seeing which way puffs are shifted as they come down. I'm working on learning to do that, but I'm not yet successful. What does the water look like when the wind is straight on as compared to shifted left or right? What is the difference in apparence when beating, running, or reaching? And how do you sort out "confused seas" in which an old pattern is being overrun by a new? Any clues are appreciated.
 
The best way to read the breeze is first find the dark parts of the water. Once you can start reliably seeing the darker water on the race course, you need to be able to find the center of the puffs. You also need to know what kind of puffs they are.

Cat paw puffs usually come down over big hills, hit the water and scatter in different directions, which means that boats on either side get a lift, but the boat that it hits dead on is headed.

Directional puffs that are lines usually move in one direction or another. When the puffs are moving in lines, you need to find the line, get the center of the puff, and keep an eye on how it's moving. If it is moving left to right, it's a lefty, and you want to be on port going up wind and Starboard going down wind in those. Righties are just the opposite.

There are also areas of pressure that don't move (these are often geographically motivated, like breeze bouncing off a shore line, or in boston, coming through the buildings (where i have experience)).

More importantly, when you have shifts converging, any one of many things can happen, usually the prevailing direction prevails, but on the river in boston, it's anyones' best guess, more about which direction has been stronger, and typical results from the local knowledge.

When the breeze gets choppy and shifty, you are generally looking at the small waves, not the big ones, and again darker water, and which way the spray is blowing. If you have moored boats, use them.

Calling shifts is the most difficult thing there is. The first big step is knowing they are there, the second being able to at least see the dark water, and then being able to call them is the last big one. You know you are good when you can call length of duration for them.

Then there's the whole thing of velocity lifts and headers, but that's a whole different chalk talk.

***I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK***
 
The best way to read the breeze is first find the dark parts of the water. Once you can start reliably seeing the darker water on the race course, you need to be able to find the center of the puffs. You also need to know what kind of puffs they are.

Cat paw puffs usually come down over big hills, hit the water and scatter in different directions, which means that boats on either side get a lift, but the boat that it hits dead on is headed.

Geez - talk about too much information! It must be a guy thing. By the time you decifer what kind of puff you've got - cat's paw puffs, dog tail puff, goat's butt puff - you've lost half the fleet! DUDE - CHILL OUT! You definitely have too much time on your hands.

Here's my take on puffs - and it's much simpler. it's very easy to read a puff - especially on flat water. That guy was right about one thing - look for the dark water. Typically puffs are very systematic - depending on the wind direction and the geography of the closest land. For example: I sail much of the time on the Charles River, Boston, and in a west wind the puffs will rush down the river and bend perpendicular to the shoreline at certain stages. First look for the puff (dark water) then try to judge the angle by looking at the direction of the chop and which way the puff is travelling. Keep in mind that wind tends to bend perpendicular as it travels along land. Puffs do change shape from a blob (cat's paw?) to a crescent (Goat's butt!:mad)as they travel along the water. Stick with the cat's paw cause the goat's butt stinks! With all that said I think the most important thing is to look for areas of most pressure, especially on small courses such as we sail here in Boston.

Go get that puff girl!
 
Geez - talk about too much information! It must be a guy thing. By the time you decifer what kind of puff you've got - cat's paw puffs, dog tail puff, goat's butt puff - you've lost half the fleet! DUDE - CHILL OUT! You definitely have too much time on your hands.

Your reply to Excollegesailor borders on a personal attack. There's no need to be rude. His post was extremely useful to me, and there was not too much information. In fact, I liked the thoughtful approach.
 
First of all, as Merrily is in Ohio, she may never have seen a hill. So, let's get that out of the discussion. :)>>>how many guy points did I just lose with that litle combo of a colon and a parenthesis

The higher you are above the water, the easier it is to look at the windflows across the water.

My concept of a good learning method is to climb as high as you can climb above a sailing area, watch the winds as they blow around on the surface and then go try to figure those winds out down on the water.

Basics>>> Sail toward darker water....connect the puffs

More tricky....if a puff is going the wrong way for your use....a lift approaching over your shoulder as you approach the layline....
think about this.
Puffs spreadout. Initially as the puff hits, the sides of the puffs are BOTH lifted tacks.

Sometimes, you can get a fifty foot lifted port hitch on the right face of a puff that is coming from ahead and to the right

and as the puff fills and ruins that port tack, ...

you flip back to starboard fifty feet inside and ahead of the competition that didn't play both sides of the arriving puff. .

It is not so much about READING the puff as it is KNOWING what a puff simply has to be.

simple summary: here comes a blotch of wind. How do I best enter that blotch to get me where I am going.

The answer is, the more blotches you enter and the more you catalog the results, the more effective your use of the next puff will be.

I know you will hate the last part...

go sail and sail and sail and sail until you get it right.


politically incorrect thoughts for learning Laser sailors....
It is lots easier to see puffs from the middle position on a Keelboat than while hanging off the side of a Laser

You gotta sail on some lead mines to learn some stuff.
 
You gotta sail on some lead mines to learn some stuff.

Awww!!!

Well, we're hoping to get the lead mine out this winter in Florida. Don't think there are any hills there, either, but I'm not sure, since I wouldn't recognize one. ;)
 
Puffs spreadout. Initially as the puff hits, the sides of the puffs are BOTH lifted tacks.

I thought as a puff fits the surface it spreads out. Thus on one side the wind will back and of the other it will veer. Thus, for boats on the same tack but on different sides of the puff, one will be headed, the other lifted. Can you clarify about the both lifted tacks ?

(I assume we are also ignoring that as a puff hits, so the apparent wind will more forward - heading you a bit).

Ian
 
Nice topic which hasn't been discussed much recently. Just the other day, I was sailing on a small lake in shifty 15 mph winds. As a (150 lb) lightweight with limited skills, I was thinking that it would be so nice to anticipate the next (~20 mph) puff coming towards me. Head up or bear off? Extend those old legs and body some more just before the puff strikes? Or will that cause a windward swim if I guessed wrong?

As Merrily wrote, excollegesailor's response was thoughtful, and (re Gouvernail) who is to say that we will always be sailing on lakes? The Masters Worlds in Australia may be next... :)
 
Depending of sailing on lakes, there is to devide in small ones ore big ones.

At small lakes, like those one is able "to spit from shore to shore" and the shore is flat, it is useful to "read the moves of the leafs" of the trees at the shore.
Often, one can trust more on those information's, than of the totally flat surface of the small pool one is sailing at, where it seems there is no wind (but 2 meters higher there is wind as one can read form those trees). Often the "foxes of that lake" know where the wind is, I often like to follow them and find myself in the 1st 1/3 of the sailing fleet. :)

If the shore of that small lakes is not flat, f.e. in reason the lake has a big wall and it is a reservoir of water to generate electricity, the wind falls downwards not calculateable by surprise and can be very strong or moves to the water from/to the wall side. Those situations may be dangerous for sailors that are newbies. But if you got some experience with such situations this winds do push you forward to the top of the fleet.

Reading the surface of lakes where "a river goes through", means, to calculate with current. Often, the surface looks strange, where the current is higher, in reason of the "river". "Catch the current" is the slogan, if the current takes the same direction like you (get away from the current if it moves not like your course) and use the informations above... A tack to the right moment not few takes you to the front position, during the upwind leg (same: if you gybe into the current and chose the side where the leafs of the trees move more while you sail downwinds).

Big lakes (I not mean such ones like Lake Erie of course, that more seem to be seas like the East Sea), such as those that have a surface of several square-kilometers /square-miles are often different to that small pools above. The wind moves more free. Here the hint is, to learn something about meteorology of clouds. The wind often is to find where the cloud moves. Yes, it's a sort of science, to feel, the wind is to find in front or backwards or direct under the big grey/white cauliflower-cloud....

Also, like with the current of a river, such big lake perhaps have areas of very low depth. This the surface very often tells you, too. Such low depth-areas, sometimes perhaps let you get to a wrong decision: "the wind is lower there" – but that's not the truth. The wind is the same, but the movements of the waves say: "Hey dude it's flat here"!.
In general: about 90° to the "lines of the peaks of a front of waves" the true-wind comes from. the rest already is told above of this thread.

Also: gusts do change the direction. Try to find out if the wind shift goes more to the right or left with your nice and heavy Silva 103R, therefor you mount it on your deck also. Use the shift of the wind to get a better position in the racing fleet.

Hope that helps a few, Merrily, and happy frostbite sailing over there!
LooserLu
 

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Tammi, we share something in common, I fine tuned my ability to read puffs sailing on the Charles River for four years. While I agree my discourse was a little verbose, often times there is a lot more to sailing puffs and shifts than a couple of sentences about sailing towards dark water and pointing towards the mark.

Yes, in the beginning it is that simple, but i guarantee that the top sailors follow that basic principle, but what sets them apart from the rest of us, is that they can distinguish amongst all of the types of shifts, understand what causes the shifts, and understand how those environmental factors affect the wind on the water. I was just trying to give Merrily a little more to go off of then the typical sail for the dark water keep the pointy end pointed at the orange ball.
 
THis weekend I probably disqualigied myself from this discussion.

I rounded teh weather mark of a one lap windward leeward just behind the leader and inside the second place guy.

The wind was from the north and fading quickly.

On the south side of the lake, there was fresh south wind in the cove. There was a smoky fire burning with near level smoke heading straight out toward the mouth of the cove.

I luffed up and took the transome of the guy on my right and headed as far right down the down as I could manage to sail.

The rest of the fleet headed slightly to the left side of the rumbline and ...

As one last breath of north wind hit, they were carried well down the course leaving me dead last and in no breeze at all.

The leader extended his elad and the second place guy lost a lot of disatnce because he had temporarily headed up with me beforw I took his transome.

The leaders rounded the leeward mark and sailed about fifty fifty on starboard and port until te next group rounded.
The next group headed to the north side of the course.

Finally, while all those guys were becalmed, the south wind filled out of the cove and I sailed fully hiked on starboard from halfway up the course, and rounded the bouy with the stragglers.

We sailed , almost planing, to the finish and caught all but the leader and the fellow whose transome I had taken to brilliantly take myself from second to a seventh place finish.

Lesson??
Look around and do what is obviously going to pay off. A flyer is always a flyer and you should never take one when staying with the pack will consolodate your third place beer stein.
The other fifteen sailors are NOT all dumbasses.

So, that is two years since 1979 I didn't get a mug at Wurtsfest and they have been consecutive.

Phooey!!!
 

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