Too much outhaul?

C

chrisfsi

New Member
I had the unexpected pleasure of finishing second in a race at the weekend, comfortably beating a number of guys I usually trail behind. Whilst I'd like to put this down to a sudden huge leap in ability, tactical skills, reading the shifts, etc, the only thing that was notably different from normal was that my outhaul cleat had jammed, which meant I sailed the whole race with no outhaul on. Weather was around 15 knots, so fairly lively but not too much so.
So the only thing I can think of is, do I normally tend to yank on too much outhaul, and flatten/depower the sail too much? Next time I go out, I'll obviously try the same technique to see if it works again. But in the meantime, any suggestions as to normal outhaul settings? I've read somewhere that the maximum distance from the boom to the foot of the sail should be about the distance from your watch to your fingertips. (although this depends on the size of your hands..) But what should the maximum amount of clew travel along the boom be between an outhaul "fully on" and "fully off" position? 1"? 3"? 6"? More??

Thanks...
 
Was it lots of waves? When the water is flat you can usualy pull on quite alot of outhaul but when there's lots of waves you need to have quite alot of power in the sail to be able to get past the waves.
 
Medium waves I guess.. 2-3 feet maybe?? We're on the sea, so there's always a fair amount, but this was not as bad as it could be..
 
Then you've probably been sailing with too much outhaul on so you haven't goten enough power over the waves.
On flat waters you can usualy just trim the boat so it dosn't overpower you and then just sail.
In wavy conditions you need more power in the sail and you'll need to work more with the main instead of just triming it so it dosn't overpower you.
 
You want the outhaul at about 4-8 inches for normal conditions, and when you become overpowered take it in to 2-4 inches off the boom, but never more than that. 4-8 inches usually equals a "hang ten" sign, which is a nice indicator because the bigger you are, the bigger your hands, the more sail force you can handle.
 
Makes sense - thanks. If you're not overpowered on the beat, do you need to pull any outhaul on at all? ie, just leave it at up to ~8" off the boom...
 
Have almost the same experience as you chrisfsi, sailed slow with too much outhaul and cunningham in medium wind - until a got the advice to losen both from an experienced sailor.

I agree with all outhaul advices to chrisfsi, but don't forget the cunningham when de-powering.
The cunningham should be tightened *before* you depower/tighten with the outhaul.
The reason is that cunningham flattens the top of the sail which reduces the needed hiking power - better than flattening the lower part of the sail.
But remember that cunningham should be as loose as possible in medium winds - just remove the worst of the creases, some creases will be visible (and forget how ugly the sail looks..)
 
Good luck!
I noticed some details in trying different trim positions (still learning..)

- For me it seems the cunningham is more sensitive for trimming. If I trim cunningham a little too hard I notice quite a loss in power/pointing ability when going upwind. A "little too hard" is when the creases are completly gone and the sail is smooth and looks nice. Any others to comment on this? (12-15knot wind and two-blocked, vang is tensioned)

- The outhaul seems much less sensitive for trimming than cunningham. The person who gave me the first lesson also said that outhaul trimming isnt so crusial provided you follow the guideline. I roughly follow the same guidlines as computeroman2 and Josef brings up.

One thing surprised me during training/testing (10-15knot wind) - even if I had quite loose outhaul so that the sail/boom distance about 8" apart I still had good pointing ability (and loose cunningham), even if this is quite a big draft in the sail. But the pointing ability was easily destroyed with trimming just a bit thighter on cunningham, why I dont know?
 
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