Category: Updates

With special credit to our resident mixologists, appetizer aficionados and desserters, it was great to celebrate together last night.  After Margaritas and Bee Stings, we were all heeling a bit, but nowhere near 52 degrees!  Here’s the gang…with a bit of space for Skootch in the front row.

I’ve never sailed this far north before!  And judging from the warm sunshine on this cloudless day, you would never know I was in the most northerly capital city in the world at the tail end of summer.

We had a beautiful afternoon sail in light wind around a few islands in the stunning archipelago surrounding Helsinki’s harbourfront area.  My colleague and sailing friend Tuure Ala-Paavola took me out on Kira, a 27 foot Albin Express.  He and I were so happy to be out on the water — two sailing enthusiasts who have spoken about the joys of racing every time I’ve visited Helsinki.  This was our first time to sail together.

The boat is perfect for sailing double-handed — especially the really clever way the spinnaker pole is stored along the boom, with pole up and pole down lines attached.  Tuure had the kite up (and down, and jibed) in a jiffy.

@Tuure:  I hope you come to Canada sometime so I can return the favour — and I’m sure the lads on the foredeck would want to here your ideas!

 

We’ve had a great season this year, and with two weeks to go in the summer series, we’re in a better position than ever.  Some of the races are tight, though, and it will come down to the wire.  Here’s how it stands:

Tuesdays

Click Here for the detailed standings.

We are currently in third place (17.5 points) behind Top Gun (6 points) and Remarkable (8 points).  They are so far ahead, that second place is out of reach.  Right behind us we have Battlewagon (2.5 points behind), and Eclipse (5.5 points behind).  Sandpiper (27.5 points) is probably no longer a factor.

There are two races left and each boat can drop one more of their lowest scores.  We’ll miss at least one more race, so no drops for us, but Battlewagon and Eclipse could each improve there score by a few points by dropping their worst outing.

In order to cling to third place, we’ll need to compete at least one of the two next weeks — even better if we can stay ahead of Battlewagon and Eclipse.

Thursdays

Click Here for the detailed standings.

We are currently in second place (24 points) behind Top Gun (8 points) with Sabotage just one point behind.  It’s likely that Doug in his viper will put in at least one more bullet to claim second place, especially as they have a DNC they can drop (worth 9 points).  In the battle for third place we have a stiff contest developing:  Battlewagon (3 points behind), Legacy (5 points behind), and Take Notice (6 points behind).  Sandpiper and Eclipse are too far behind to be factors.

There are two races left and each boat can drop one more of their lowest scores.  We may miss one more race, which means we would not benefit from the drop. Battlewagon will be able to improve a few points, while Legacy and Take Notice can each drop a DNC.  Dropping our lowest scores to date, we are in a dead heat for third place with three other boats: Legacy, Take Notice, & Battlewagon.

In order to cling to third place, we’ll need to compete both of the two next weeks — even better if we can stay ahead of Legacy, and Take Notice.

Overall

Right now we are second overall!

While it will be tough to cling to a flag position on Tuesday or Thursday, we are more certain of a flag for the overall summer series, since some tough boats only sail one night a week: Legacy, Take Notice, Sabotage.  Top Gun will certainly be “top gun” again (14 points so far).  We have 41.5 points, Battlewagon has 47 points, whereas Sandpiper and Eclipse are well astern with 60+ points.

With the coming drops, Battlewagon will benefit more than we will, so it is a dead heat between us for 2nd and 3rd place.

 

Had a beautiful evening out on the water with colleagues this week.  Calvin caught these images and video of us.  Gil was at the helm, and I was coaching the others on how to sail the boat.  Everyone did a great job and had a very relaxing time.

On the longer races of the GHYRA, we had two chances to repeat something really interesting about sail trim (check out the reports from 2016 and 2017).  On those days, the wind was steady and light, and each time, we were able to get a lot more boat speed by systematically optimizing every aspect of sail trim.  We left the experience with a great sense of gratification from coaxing more speed out of the boat in a virtuous cycle:  more boat speed created more apparent wind and that additional wind allowed us to create more boat speed. (and the apparent wind shifted forward, so we had to adjust for that, or the boat would slow down again).

It also showed us that PERSPECTIVE’s boat speed is very sensitive to tiny adjustments.  These adjustments are so tiny that you can’t see the effect on sail shape or the tell-tales.  The sails looked as good at 3 knots of boat speed as they did at 4 knots.  All the tell-tales were flying in both cases.  The verdict?  Our eyeballs and tell-tales are only crude indicators of sail trim.

Which means that on the shorter legs of our typical races there is a lot more untapped boat speed to be found.  How to find it?

Lazy Sheet and I were talking about this on the weekend.  How could we make this kind of tweaking part of our culture? How can we get our eyeballs off the sail shape and onto the speed meter to find that extra 10% of speed on each and every leg?  (remember, races are won and lost on 3-5% of differences in speed across the course).  We propose this algorithm:

Upwind (adjust your STOCS for bigger gains)

1. We tack
2. We gain boat speed
3. We head up
4. We use sail shape and balance to adjust our trim
5. This is our baseline
6. NOW we invoke “Tiny tiny STOCS”.  Check the boat speed and apparent wind speed, then optimize one parameter at a time, making just 1cm of change in one direction. For example:  mainsheet out 1cm, pause to measure speed, if better, try another cm, if worse undo, try in 1cm…continue until no change.
   1. main Sheet
   2. Traveler
   3. Outhaul
   4. genoa Car
   5. genoa Sheet
7. And once one cycle is done, we immediately start the next cycle.

Downwind (do favours – DUFAVOS  – to get ahead)

1. We gybe
2. We head up
3. We gain boat speed
4. We settle on our course
5. We adjust the pole & mainsail using our eyes and trim the sheet accordingly
6. This is our baseline
7. Now we invoke “DU tiny tiny FAVOS”
   1. pole Down/Up
   2. pole Forward/Aft
   3. boom Vang
   4. Outhaul
   5. main Sheet
8. And once one cycle is done, we immediately start the next cycle.

 

Yesterday when sailing on Battlewagon, I noticed that their mainsail never backwinded, even in relatively strong wind.  In particular, I noticed that is was significantly less deep than ours.  It had a shallow draft — much more shallow than on PERSPECTIVE.  There was about an inch or two of pre-bend in the mast.

And that made me think about the connection between pointing, backwinding, pre-bend and the design of the mainsail.  It seems to me that we didn’t have as big a challenge with backwinding prior to this season.  But now that the forestay is shorter and we are pointing higher (especially with the flat #2 and #3 headsails), we have this annoying backwind in the mainsail.

Intuitively, we all want to clean it up, and we believe that there is more speed to be found when we do that.  But, the steps we take to clean it up come at the expense of the mainsail leech shape, and generally we don’t gain any speed — sometimes we sail faster with a pronounced bubble in the main.

Rig tuning is clearly a factor, as I wrote recently.  But what if the mainsail is simply cut too deeply?

This morning, this idea popped into my head, and it made me think about how difficult it had been to point with the new Doyle #3 headsail before it was re-cut and the forestay shortened.  That headsail had been designed with a deep shape to give the boat lots of power, assuming that it was the only headsail the boat would have.  The main we are using now (also by Doyle) was also designed at the same time with the same designers, making the same assumption:  no overlapping genoa, therefore lots of power needed from the mainsail.  In other words, the sails were built for power, not pointing.

Before last season, Gil and I measured the Dole mainsail and headsail  and the original Quantum #3.  Sure enough, there was a huge difference in the luff curve of the two headsails.  When we switched to the original #3, we could point higher.  With that in mind, we used the Quantum #3 until it fell apart (it had been damaged by the sun during the first season — another story).  And based on that experience, I had North sails recut the Doyle #3 until it is the nice flat headsail we have today.  (and that also lead to shortening the forestay).

But we never measured the original Quantum mainsail to compare it with the current Doyle mainsail. So, this morning I did that.  Here’s the comparison:

Bingo!  The original Quantum mainsail (blue ink) has 2 1/4″ less luff curve than the newer Doyle mainsail.  It is definitely shallower than the Doyle mainsail.

I’d like to try the experiment of using this mainsail in the upcoming races to see if we can tame the backwinding without compromising speed.  Yes, we’ll need some pre-bend too, but maybe only half as much.

Some additional thoughts

• The Quantum main is in very good shape.  Unlike the #3, it was not exposed to UV light.
• If this works out, our standard sail plan may well be the Quantum mainsail and the #2 genoa, shifting down to deep powerful sails (main and genoa) only for very light winds, when power is more important than pointing.
• We’re likely to have less weather helm with a flatter mainsail — better pointing, better balance, better speed.
• I’ve noticed that Top Gun has two mainsails — a new black one for windy days, and their older transparent one for light wind days.

Let’s give it a whirl and see how it goes.

 

 

Kersplush! Kersplush!

Big waves today at Ashbridge’s Bay, as Lazy Sheet and I helped Battlewagon around the course.

Yesterday we had to wait several hours for a hint of wind and then put in two light-wind races, getting used to the boat and the ways things are done.  Good thing we had that practice.

Today in bigger wind, and very big waves (6 feet average, some as big as about 8 feet!), we all needed our wits about us and a firm hold on the boat to move around.  We had Battlewagon’s rail burried, and the spray that came as we crested a wave and splashed into the next on was like MarineLand when the killer whales breeched.

My whole world is still bobbing up and down.  Here’s a taste of what you missed:

One of the ingredients of our success yesterday evening was almost certainly some renewed focus on rig tuning.  So far this year, I dialed in something approximate and have left it at that.  It was a conversation with Doug Folsetter that got me back to thinking about it.

I described to him the fact that our mainsail was getting heavily backwinded above about 8 knots of true wind speed.  First he said what others have said — that it’s okay to sail with the backwinded ‘bubble’ in the luff of the mainsail.  It can be a very fast mode.  But then he went on to describe how he’s tamed that situation on his Viper 830 — a tighter rig tuning with significant pre-bend.  After making these adjustments and fine tuning for a couple of years, they are now able to keep their mainsail powered up in conditions where it used to be ‘inside out’.

Why?  Well, I’m no expert, but here is what I’ve been able to piece together.

• When the wind fills the genoa, the forestay pulls the mast to leeward at the hounds (where the forestay and the upper shrouds meet the mast), unless there is enough resisting tension in the upper shrouds.
• When the wind fills the mainsail, the mast bends to leeward all along its length.
• This effectively increases the depth of the mainsail along the mast
• Air flow in the gap is insufficient to support that much depth in the mainsail, whereas there is plenty of air flow on the windward side and the net effect is an inverted pressure gradient near the mast, that creates the bubble.
• The bubble extends aft until the airflow coming off the outer surface of the genoa meets the leeward face of the mainsail, and the desired pressure gradient is restored
• Tightening the backstay in these conditions is only partly effective, because it tends to bend the mast laterally as well as forward and aft

So, to combat the mast bend to leeward, the shrouds have to be much tighter, beginning with the uppers but also including the mids and lowers to keep the mast in column laterally, when the sails are under load.  And once this is established, then the backstay adjuster will induce mast bend in the forward/aft direction, flattening the luff of the mainsail.

And, to flatten the luff of the sail, the mast should be pre-bent, using the shrouds to induce some forward and aft bend even when the backstay is loose.

Last night I tuned the rig differently than we had done previously this year:

• very firm uppers, lowers and mids
• no pre-bend

The results were positive — with the backstay adjuster somewhere near half stroke we could balance the boat well, even though we may have had too much headsail area, and we could remove most of the bubble most of the time using plenty of twist on the mainsail and managing gusts with the traveler.

But I want to build from this to see what happens with some pre-bend, by softening the mid and lower shrouds 5 mm each compared to last night.  I’ve built a new tuning chart that I think should accomplish this.  We’ll start applying it and keeping notes.

Fun!

Overall: 2nd place in our fleet (glass and flag)

Tuesday: 2nd place in our fleet (glass)

Thursday: 3rd place in our fleet (glass)

Before the race today, we sailed over to get a close look at the tall ships in the bay, and Four Hands snapped a picture of us among them!