How
to Keep
Moving
By Tim MurrayAboard Keep Moving my crew and I enjoy Wednesday night sailing (Lake Ponchartrain, New Orleans). Several of us have been sailing together for many years, we enjoy each other's company and we enjoy working together to make the boat go fast. New crew is always welcome, because none of us can make it every week, and it does not take long for even a brand new sailor to learn some of task that have to be coordinated to help Keep us Moving.
The first rule of boat speed is to keep it fun. Fun is fast, fun makes it easy to get crew and life is to short to do it any other way. Sailing is something that we do for pleasure, not torture. Aboard Keep Moving we take pleasure in working together to sail as well as we can.
First some big things. Clean bottom, sail trim, and crew weight distribution.
Cleaning your bottom regularly is essential. The higher performance your boat is, the more important this is, but even an old clunker goes faster with a clean bottom. You can do it yourself or hire a diver. There are some good guys available at a reasonable price; it runs about the same as it does to stock your boat with refreshments. If you don't want to do this you really don't need to read any further.
Sail trim and crew weight distribution are very much related. Also entwined with these is the concept that the rudder should be used more as feed back from the boat telling you that something needs to be changed instead of a device to overcome poor sail trim and weight distribution. Every time you move the rudder it slows the boat down. Sail trim adjustments and weight distribution can make it much easier to keep your boat on its feet and going fast and in the right direction. The inept skipper fighting the wheel or tiller and rounding up in puffs is someone you don't want to be.
Years ago when I was young we had a small skiff with an outboard. For some reason I used to delight in standing just forward of the middle of the boat and steering it by shifting my body from side to side. Sailboats are the same way. When a puff of wind hits the crew can move to the high side; that will ease the pressure on the rudder. You can experiment with this when you are day sailing on a moderate wind day. From the high side, get your boat trimmed out and lock the tiller or wheel. Then go to the low side and see the boat start to round up into the wind.
You don't have to wait for a puff to hit and then react. The crew should be watching the water to the windward and calling the puffs. That way you can get maxim acceleration and boat speed benefit from each puff.
Fore and aft weight distribution is also important. In general the lighter the air the more forward the crew should be. As the wind picks up you can start working the crew aft. In a variation on the experiment that we talked about moving your weight from side to side, you can accomplish the same thing by going forward and the boat will also round up. Having a foredeck person who can get things done in a hurry is very important, especially as the wind picks up. Avoid the urge of letting a second crewmember go forward to help. When people are up at the bow it makes the boat harder to steer and that is slow.
The most common problem with weight distribution is to see the cockpit loaded with people. Extreme cases have people perched on the stern pulpit. That is very slow. To get an idea of where your crew should be on your boat take a look at it next time that it is out of the water. Start with placing the most weight near where the underwater profile is the fullest, and then experiment from there.
Sail trim is really not all that complicated. The sails are a flexible airfoil all you need to do is to take full advantage of their flexibility. In light air you make them as full as you can. As the air gets heavier gradually flatten them out. Start with very loose halyards and slowly bring them up until the sails look ok. As the wind increases flatter sails will be less powerful and make the boat easier to steer. You can achieve this by tightening your various sail controls. For the main that would be the halyard, outhull, Cuningham and backstay. For the headsails you can work with the halyard and the fore-and-aft position of the lead block. When the wind is going up and down it helps to make these adjustments on the fly.
Now a few other things and then we will try to tie it all together.
Wednesday night sailing is a great place to practice your starting. First decide where you want to be in the first few minutes after the start. For example if we are the small boat in the starting group I want to be sure that we have a way to get and keep clear air. If we are the fast boat in the starting group that is less of a problem. Watch the starts ahead of you and see what worked for different boats. I would also suggest not getting too far away from the starting line; short runs are easier to time. Many skippers that are trying to start near the boat end of the line make the mistake of getting there to soon. Somebody is going to get a good start, why not make it be you.
On the reaching races avoid the temptation to go up; holding low on reaches usually pays off. This is important both coming and going. Having to come down to either the J mark or the finish line in light air is a good way to lose. You can help accomplish this by going down in the puffs and ease up a little in the lighter air to maintain speed. A lot of sailors do the opposite of this and it is very slow, more on that in a minute.
In non-spinnaker racing be sure to put the whisker pole to leeward as soon as the wind lets you. That greatly opens the slot between the main and the Genoa, makes it easier to steer and picks up speed. If the wind gets further aft you can wing out your Genoa. Sometimes we jibe back and forth leaving the pole unchanged. Don't worry a lot about getting to low on a reach. If you see that you will not be able to get to the mark with the pole out, pick your spot to douse the pole and reach up with the Genoa. That is a fast way to approach a mark or finish line.
The way to get the best performance from any boat is realize that there are many small adjustments that in themselves may seem minor but all add up to better boat speed. It is like shifting gears in a sports car.
Now lets tie it together. Lets assume that you have gotten a decent start, have clear air, space below you and the wind is puffy out of the south. As the jagged water shows the approaching puff your crew calls out its progress. The rest of the crew gets ready to move to the high side and ease the traveler or main sheet (if you ease the main be sure the vang is on.) and ease the Genoa. As the puff hits the boom goes down making it easy for the helmsman to veer to the leeward. At the same time the crew is moving higher or leaning out against the puff and the headsail trimmer is easing the sheet to keep the yarns on both sides of the sail flowing. Your speed jumps and you work your way downward. This will give you the freedom to work up some in the lighter air while all of this is reversed. With practice this maneuver resembles a smooth and well-coordinated ballet and few words need to be spoken.
Finally there seems to be a myth that you have to drink alcohol while sailing and sailboat racing. I enjoy sailing immensely and from my viewpoint drinking aboard reduces my enjoyment and does not add to it. If you want to drink, bar rooms are much better places to do so. Drinking in a race is very slow. For a cheap edge on your competitors, buy them a drink or two before the race.