| May the Force (of
wind) be with you! |
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This year’s Spa regatta had two days of heavy
air racing. As long as everything and everybody on
board stayed in one piece it produced a very nice
practice of heavy air sailing, especially since
Hyeres was such a briljant light air event.
It was quite obvious that most of the sailors
were out of practice. Capsizing and putting up
boats quickly because of the shallow depth there
is at Medemblik. Many masts were either bent
or broken because of this. For those who did
manage to stay upright, but the “art of heavy air
racing” still seemed to be forgotten a bit, here’s
the following article.
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Photo by
Coachworks
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Well, What’s the difference?
Heavy air sailing is probably 90% boathandling and 10%
equipment or setup, which makes it also quite easy.
So what’s the big fuzz about it? Or what’s the big
difference with light air sailing? Is the boat following
different principles like: “Is it going to windward if you let
it heel to windward?” Or: “Is it getting lighter on the
helm if you let it heel ???”
No, no, no!! All the rules of
physics remain the same whether it blows or not!! They just
are a bit bigger!!
The only extra dimension could maybe just be the aspect of
fear and maybe bad physical shape.
Knowing your set up for depowering the sails should be know
otherwise don’t go out there.
In single handed dinghies with a cat rig (unstayed) that
mostly means giving the mast just a touch more rake in order
to open up the leech and have the boat just sail with a lower
working sail area. A very good insight is presented at the web
site from WB Sail makers ( http://www.wb-sails.fi/ ).
In stayed dinghies it also means dropping the mast but keep
the tension on the stayes and the speaders alligned (or just a
touch to the back of it) with the mast attachment and the boat
attachment thus controling the sideway bent. The rest of
it is having the right systems on vang, forestay, outhaul etc.
So that when it comes to bussiness, you can really put on some
tension while sailing, in order to get the sail flat and
controlable.
Fear can drag you to the dark side
Mentally you need to be fully psyched up in order to sail
the boat instead of the boat sailing with you on it. Fear
mostly gives all the wrong reactions in the body. So be pumped
up before you launch the boat. Double check the gear and
go for it. But don’t forget: “speed is stability” and “speed
means less forces on the rig” (Sorry Yngling girls but yes;
the same still goes for you too)
So go for speed and
manouvre when the speed is the highest and starts to drop
especially gybing.
Because of the forces being bigger, small changes have big
consequences. Apparent wind angles will change big time and if
your not fast or strong enough the sails plus boat will
sometimes shudder. No worries. It just meant that you either
were to slow to early or too late with sheeting, steering etc.
Get of your lazy butt!!! You need to hike harder,
anticipate, react with the reflexes of a Yedi master
(Star wars is in I believe….). So get in the gym start
training in heavy air and go for it!
May the force be with you!!
Good winds
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