From the letter I sent out in October to all the owners, I received a few responses that included some good questions. I will begin to respond to these questions as I have the time. First read the question below from Brian, and then my above response. While I have sailed my Rocket 22 a bunch, I certainly do not qualify as an expert or professional sailor. My hope is to get some discussion flowing from all the owners (not just me!) as to your experiences as well. Please feel free to add your thoughts, photos, & videos to this discussion.
In really light air (under 5 kt), I have every line and the rig tension eased. Make sure you concentrate weight around the keel and give the boat a little heel. The sails are full, but not that much twisted off. Traveler/boom down a few inches from center and vang off. In 5 – 8 kt of wind, I keep the rig tension eased, but sheet in, and vang on a little. Try to have the jib luff evenly along the forward telltales. Unless I have lumpy conditions, once I get some speed on, I find I can sail with pretty flat sails in light air. Have a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paqWs74XhLo&NR=1 for some 5-6 kt wind sailing.
Jonathan
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HI Jonathon,
I haven't been able to get out this year for a variety of reasons. This weekend just past we had a very light air double handed pair of races. While we finished at the line second in both races we got killed on handicap, finishing fourth. Setting aside the tactical blunders I made, the question I have is how are you tuning for very light air? I followed my previous practice of easing everything: rig, halyards, outhaul, cunningham and the sails were quite full. We had the jib twisted open at the top and kept the slot quite open. Nonetheless, the boat felt sluggish. I am now thinking that we would have been better served to keep the sails flatter in order to keep the flow attached. What is your thinking?
Thanks,
Brian Pickton
Hull #11
4 comments:
We get good results with some heel and pushing crew weight all the way up to the shrouds going upwind (even when the wind is up). Gotta get her big ole' butt out of the water. Downwind, when light, ease the tack line about 8" and rotate the chute to weather, heel the boat to weather, and get weight forward to keep the transom dry.
I checked out the video. These guys are sailing in a gale compared to what we were in. The breeze never got above 3 knots the whole day, and those were the puffs. Most of the day it was glass with us trying to glide from one patch of ripples to the next. Don't get me wrong, because unlike most I love light air sailing and as a rule usually do quite well in it, but this day we were just off.
We were sitting forward but I was inboard and the crew was on the rail. The boat was heeled slightly to leeward, a tactic we adopted to pull some shape into the sails. The air was so light that although we were making headway the knot log read zero for much of the time. The wake was the barest ripple. Comparing what I am seeing in the video with our sail set we had more twist in the jib and the main halyard was slacker, judging by the amount of bag we had in the sail along the boom. The traveler was to windward of the centre line with the main eased slightly less than a foot below it. (I have the traveler indexed so I can recreate settings)We were deliberately sailing abit low to try to keep momentum up. So based on this I would say we over did it in the twist and easing main halyard departments. Flatter for the next go round.This wouold also allow us to point up a bit without fear of stalling completely. Thanks for the video link that allowed this comparison.
Jim, thanks for the additional input. We have followed the same practice on getting crew weight forward to the shrouds but were a bit lax on that on this day. I will take that bit of advice on easing the tack, rotating the chute to weather, and healing to weather as well in light air. As it happened this regatta was a white sail only event so we were at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of sail area.
On the lighter side my crew (who is the club champion J-24 skipper and was at the helm on the Labour Day regatta when we tore the rudder off at the water line while doing 13+) opined that the other big issue was the fact that I was just so damned happy to finally be out in the boat I wasn't paying attention to the driving.
Guilty as charged, my Lord.
Brian, we sailed last week end in the same air as you described. We won 1st in fleet. had headsail flat w/ slight barberhaul ( To open slot ). Over the years we've found that sails too soft in Veery light air looses energy just to blow sail into shape. Our philo. on mainsail in almost all conditions is that less is more, i.e. Most the sailors tend to over trim main, which induces drag on the boat. Every set of sails and every boat is diff. U just have to find what works for U. The R22 mains are so full that in 3kts or less we keep main flat, again to reduce flutter and loss of wind energy to fill sail. I'm amazed at how the R22 walks away from the fleet in those very light conditions. Oh yes, we do slight heel to lew, sometimes have crew weight tack w/ less rudder.
Hi Fred,
Thanks for the comments. I had my sails built by Doyle (Randy Canada in CA had a lot of input) and they are quite flat. Overtriming is usually not my issue, although based on the comments from yourself, Jonathon and Jim with respect to the traveler I think I was guilty of that as well as badly over easing the controls.
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