Hi Peter,

Good set of questions!

If there is a sudden header, presumably you hike hard and bear away to reattach the flow to the sails before tacking. – Depends on how big the header is and whether the crew is ready to tack. If it is sharp header that looks as though it is here to stay, I will generally tack providing I have a good lane on the new tack and it is taking me closer to the mark than the previous tack. Generally though, I will have 80-90% made my decision before the header has hit.

If there is a lift, do you get your crew to crack off the jib slightly and point up gradually, or do you just roll the boat away from you to take you up to close hauled straight away? – If the lift is big enough to stall the leeward tell tale, my crew will ease the jib and gradually pull back in as I head up. This is something we constantly work on, even on pond sailing. I am aiming to sail the boat 100% flat, unless very light wind and mainsail tell tales struggling to fly.

If you get hit by a gust and aren’t able to keep flat by simply hiking harder, do you ease the main, or point up and feather the boat to keep it flat? – A little of both. If the gust is sudden and the rig isn’t set correctly for the new wind, I will ease the main a little and feather up to wind a little to keep the boat flat, if I can’t do it by perching a little harder. If the new gust is here to stay and I wasn’t able to change sail settings in time, I will change controls and balance rig so that I can then put the bow down and keep tell tales on genoa flying.

Does this change depending on whether you are on the sea or on a loch? – No

And do you dive for the kicker and the outhaul as soon as you are hit by the gust, or do you do “damage control” to get the boat flat again before changing sail settings? – I never alter the outhaul upwind on a GP. Ideally kicker is applied as gust hits. In my boat it is whoever gets their first controls the kicker. Ideally crew is best place for kicker control. 

In patchy conditions, what do you do when you hit a lull? Do you keep sailing to the telltales? Do you get the crew to crack off the jib slightly to keep trucking until the next bit of pressure, and if so, by how much? Do you avoid tacking in lulls? – I would sail through the lull if it still takes me closer to the next mark in a clear lane and there isn’t any obvious new pressure coming from the other tack that would mean I could loose out to boats to windward. I would also stay in position if I was in protecting a position and I was between the boats I was covering and the next mark. i.e. why take the risk. Let them decide.

Crew would ease the jib a little if the lull was very light, or boat speed completely vanished, but in those conditions the crew would of moved weight to leeward and be able to see the slot between genoa and main. I good test is to check whether the genoa is bending around the shroud. If it is, then there isn’t enough pressure, so ease a little.

Sometimes in a lull it may feel like a header, whereas the wind direction may not have changed. I think this is due to the apparent wind moving more on to the bow. If you tack in this situation it will just feel like you are tacking around a big circle and probably not achieve anything.

And tactics-wise, would you tend to follow the shifts more, or go for pressure? – I think of pressure as big picture, ie. what can I see on 2-3 minutes on the water ahead of me and shifts as the immediate vicinity – up to 1 min. You always want more pressure and then when you are near it, just make sure you are better positioned relative to the next mark than your competition. When looking at big picture pressure on the water, pressure that is likely to pass to leeward will back and pressure that will hit the windward bow will lift. 

Hope this helps.

Mike

That’s interesting, I was always taught that you should adjust your boat balance so the rudder always felt “slack” to reduce turbulence, so pointing up always gets combined with a slight leeward roll so there’s no resistance when I move the tiller away. I also find in light winds that rolling the boat to facilitate steering means that I can get an extra spurt of power when I flatten it out again afterwards (although this is straying into debatable rule 42 territory). Perhaps this is more effective in a boat that’s more sensitive to weight movement, like a mirror or a firefly? Anyway, you reckon the possible extra leeway and loss in power in a GP cancels out any benefit from minimising rudder drag? – Unfortunately I don’t there is one rule for all conditions. I usually sail on a small pond so the lifts and headers can be extreme from 1 minute to the next. To actively induce leeward heal to role the boat to windward would mean the lift would have to be substantial. In any breeze where the helm and crew are sitting to windward I would argue that letting the boat heal to leeward would negatively effect your sideways drift compared to sailing flat and fast. I am also not conscious of my rudder movement in this scenario. If the lift was substantial which required lots of rudder movement, I would expect the wind to be light, so in this scenario I probably would naturally move my bum from the deck to the inside seat which I would of thought naturally made my rudder lift the boat up. I’m not 100% sure about this as this action isn’t something I think about. It is just a muscle memory.

So when you’re steering the boat through waves, you just keep the jib fully in? I think my crews will be happy to hear that! – Yes, however if there is a wave that is particularly steep or I cock it up, we may ease the genoa on the back side of the wave for a few seconds then put the bow down to get some speed back up. Generally though, I will sail the boat in a “high mode” up the wave (max power, maybe slightly pinched, windward jib tell tale fluttering up), and “low mode” down the wave (efficient sail plan, tell tales streaming). That could mean in any decent wind the mainsail is slightly over sheeted going up the wave and eased back to its fast position down the wave. In light to moderate conditions where the main is never eased it is all about generating max power, so little kicker but loads of mainsheet tension as this will bend the mast much less than kicker and therefore give you a more powerful sail. The main in these conditions will remain relatively static, but the waves should also be smaller given the conditions. Rudder movement will be lots more in short steep waves than long rolling ones, but assuming you have correct trim, you shouldn’t generally need to ease the jib very often. If you do, just make sure you remember to get it back as soon as you are back to speed.

So you think that the difference is small enough that boat-to-boat tactics are the main factor in your decision? – Generally, yes. My perfect race is simply to go the same way as everyone else, but faster. Minimises the risk. However, if I find myself back in the fleet I will take any little gain I can find to pick my way up. Generally though small shifts don’t make the biggest difference in this scenario, but boat handling around marks. If you mess up your mark rounding it then generally means you have next to no options on your next leg. A good mark rounding gives you a left/right decision or high/low decision to make. A bad rounding means you have to go one or the other to get a good lane, which could be the wrong decision. After that and assuming you have good boat speed, most of my thoughts are then on boat-boat tactics relative to the fleet. My biggest decisions tactically are generally taken in the 2-3 minutes prior to the start as that will determine whether we go middle-left or middle-right up the first beat. If we get round the first mark in the top few, then it is generally just close boat tactics that remain, unless the fleet I am concerned with split tacks, then the decision making process is based on my interpretation of the best way to go, or where my likely regatta competition is relative to the risks I am taking.

Sheeting angles are always a problem for me. Do you usually use leach hook at spreader height as an indication? Or is there another method you use? I’ve heard of using the angle the jib sheet makes with the clew as a method, but it seems like that would vary with the actual cut of the sail, so it’s not something I want to rely on too much – I try to get the sheeting angle to be about 45 to 60 degrees (ish). I have never measured it but it looks as though the angle would probably split the jib in two if you continued the line. I very rarely alter it. In fact on a previous boat I fitted it out without any adjustment. A GP genoa is a flat sail compared to a lot of other boats because it is sheeted so far outboard (on the side deck). Therefore the most critical control after you have got the angle about right is how hard you pull it. I would recommend, next time you look at replacing your mainsail you ask your sailmaker to put a spreader window in (if you don’t have one) as you can then see when sitting to windward whether the genoa is pulled in hard enough or not. Generally above a force 1 it is pulled in tight, but the window is useful as generally it is not pulled in tight enough when the breeze pipes up.

I think I get you. So if you’re sailing in non-tidal waters, with oscillating shifts, and there’s a big black cloud on the left hand side (or even if it just looks like there’s a bit more breeze on the way down the left), you want to try and keep to the left of the fleet even if it means initially taking a knock from the shifts? Basically ride the lift all the way round the right hand side of the breeze – Yes, these decisions are generally made right at the beginning of the beat, ideally pre-start or just before you drop your kite at the leeward mark, as it can have a big impact on how you start or mark round.

Mike