BOAT SPEED
There’s an art and, a science, to keeping the boat at the best angle to the wind and maintaining precise steering across the wind range.
There’s an art, and a science, to keeping the boat at the best angle to the wind and maintaining precise steering across the wind range. Here’s how to find it.
Point Loma High School sailing team, the all-time leader of national championships in high-school sailing, practices near San Diego YC in La Playa basin, a small, shifty, flat-water venue where windshifts range from 10 to 30 degrees. Two to three shifts per leg or more are the norm. It’s difficult sailing and the perfect venue to reinforce the importance of steering your boat to the correct angle to the wind. When you get it all right—heel angle, sail trim, angle to the wind— something changes: The crew that steers most accurately and trims its sails best, given the constantly changing wind angles, wins. Those who tend not to steer well—for example, bearing away 10 degrees in a
When a steering groove is fine, especially with narrow foils like those on the Viper 640, it’s key to balance your power and angle. PHOTO : SHARON GREEN /
U LT I M A T E S A I L I N G 20-degree header, slow down too much. Those who head up 5 degrees in a 15-degree lift stall out with tight sails and sail extra distance. As Point Loma’s coach, I truly believe La Playa gives us an advantage because it’s so difficult. When the kids race in venues with stable wind, they’re so tuned into keeping the boat at the best angle to the wind that their steering is extremely precise.
On upwind and downwind legs, drivers have three focal points: boatspeed, heel angle, and the sails—specifically the jib telltales upwind and the spinnaker leeches downwind. It’s your sails that help determine your angle to the wind, and it’s your angle to the wind that dictates your speed.
How do we determine the optimum angle? That’s the easy part: It’s the fastest angle based on what the boat needs at the time. The boat is almost always looking for either more power or less power. As wind velocity, sea state, puffs and shifts change, the boat’s speed, and therefore its needs, will change. Your optimum angle changes too.
Think of it this way: The more you sail toward a beam reach, the more power your boat develops and the faster it goes. That’s good to know if, for instance, you encounter a wave set upwind and need extra power. A few degrees of course change away from the wind makes a big difference. You sail faster to reduce slowing through the waves, but you also sail more distance to the mark. The net, however, is a gain by keeping the boat going fast. When you turn up a few degrees from closehauled, away from a beam reach and toward head to wind, the boat slows and will depower—but it also takes you closer to the mark. It’s a great way to improve your velocity made good, especially if you encounter a smooth patch of water.
A few degrees of course change away from the wind makes a big difference. You sail faster to reduce slowing through the waves, but you also sail more distance to the mark.
The same principle applies downwind: Soak down from the optimal angle, toward dead downwind and away from a beam reach, and the boat depowers. You go slower, but you sail less distance. Head up toward a beam reach, and you power up the sails and go faster but sail more distance.
By keeping the boat at the perfect angle to the wind, you help regulate its speed and heel angle, naturally sailing the best VMG distance.
By nailing the proper angle more often, you can outdrive your competitors. For me, the best visual cues to help determine the optimal angles are the jib telltales and the spinnaker. Here’s how it works.
Upwind steering in the groove
Jib-luff telltales are your lifeblood; they tell you everything. In light air, I’m searching for power and stream my jib telltales. I never pinch. In medium air, I lift the inside telltale up to
In medium air and chop, sail with the telltales streaming straight back, or possibly with the inside telltale lifting slightly when the boat feels good. Save pointing high for the flat spots. Once it gets choppy, you can’t drive high because you need more power.
around 45 degrees; in heavy air, I’m overpowered, so I make the windward telltale go straight up or even bubble the front of the jib a little.
Wave conditions are also part of the big picture. Flat water doesn’t require as much power as choppy water, so you can point a little higher in medium and breezy conditions. You still don’t want to point in light air as the boat is searching for power. As it gets choppier, I look for more power; never getting slow. If it’s light air and really lumpy, I make the outside telltales dance a little. I stream the telltales in medium air instead of lifting the inside telltale.
In really light air, it’s best not to dance the outside telltale for long periods of time, but sometimes on a heavy-displacement boat in light air and chop, the boat actually wants that. If that’s the case, ease the jib until it doesn’t stall as much, and then get the outside telltale flowing. This is a low, powerful angle.
There could be times when the boat feels great due to a small puff, and you can head up a degree—but if you get a really bad wave, or see one coming, bear away to keep the boat moving fast. The key is to hedge toward speed first and point only when the boat feels good. Then, don’t get slow. Reacceleration is the killer.
In medium air and chop, sail with the telltales streaming straight back, or possibly with the inside telltale lifting slightly when the boat feels good. Save pointing high for the flat spots. Once it gets choppy, you can’t drive high because you need more power.
Suppose your target speed is 6 knots. You’re sailing along on port tack at that speed with the windward-jib telltale lifting about one-third of the way up. You get a 5-degree header, the telltale goes straight up and the jib luff backwinds. Now you’re
pinching. You didn’t turn the boat at all, but the wind shifted 5 degrees, so it’s the same as if you headed up 5 degrees.
To help understand this I picture a big arrow pointing at my boat from the wind direction, aiming at the jib. That’s the wind angle. And when the wind shifts, I picture that arrow moving to reflect that shift. In this 5-degree header, the arrow is moving forward—making the jib luff backwind.
At this point, the boat’s not happy anymore because it’s been depowered by pinching.
The speed starts dropping. If you don’t do something, the speed will soon drop off the cliff.
Most refuse to accept they’re sailing into a header. Instead, they think: “This is still feeling pretty good. I wonder if this is temporary? Maybe I’ll just wait a little bit and see.”
Meanwhile, the really great drivers are thinking, “I don’t want to pinch right now. The
Flat water doesn’t require as much power as choppy water, so you can point a little higher in medium and breezy conditions. You still don’t want to point in light air as the boat is searching for power. As it gets choppier, I look for more power; never getting slow.
boat felt sweet a second ago. I’ll just pop the bow down and keep ripping along at 6 knots.”
At the end of a leg, after a few wiggles up and down, those great drivers are ahead of you. You might think you’re gaining because you’re pinching, and they’re footing—but they’re going fast, and you’re not. Meanwhile, you have to rebuild, and you end up going even lower to accelerate.
The best skippers in shifty breeze don’t have preconceived notions of the angle. They let the wind dictate where they drive, and they just go fast all the time.
When that 5-degree header hits, the first decision is whether to sail through the shift or roll right into the opposite tack. If I don’t tack—for tactical reasons, perhaps— I need to quickly bring the bow to a closehauled course.
Because I’ve been pinching for the past two or three seconds and decelerating, I need to get back to 6 knots of speed immediately. It’s not going to happen quickly by bearing off to my previous angle to the wind, inside telltale lifting.
I might only get to 5.8 by doing so; it will take more to get back to 6 knots. Instead, I probably need to bear away 6 degrees. I was sailing with my jib telltale up, but now I’m streaming it.
That’s a much more powerful mode and will get me back up to 6 knots promptly. Once I’m settled in at 6 knots, I can head up a degree or two and lift that inside telltale to where it was before.
If I’m itching to tack anyway and have that 5-degree header, I don’t bear away when the jib begins to bubble—I roll straight into a tack. The advantage is I’m now tacking through 5 degrees less than I normally would, thanks to the header. So the tack is a little faster than usual.
Encountering steep chop introduces another set of variables. I’m sailing upwind, with 6 knots of speed, inside telltales one-third up, and here comes some chop. It looks steep, and it looks as if I’m going slam into it.
If the boat feels nice and powerful and I’m happy with my speed, I can probably sail straight or maybe bear away a degree for a couple of seconds before the chop hits.
The inside telltale goes from one-third up to flowing straight back. In doing so, I’ve added power to the boat. It might heel a few degrees, but the speed pops. When I hit the chop, the speed drops to 5.9, but I’m already at a nice angle to the wind for power, so I just wait for it to come back up to 6 then head up again.
If you’re sailing in a place with weeds or kelp, factor in how the boat feels and what the speed is in order to decide how to best steer around it. If you’re going really well and the boat feels good, pinch up around the obstacle and glide above it. Bubble the front of the jib, get around the kelp, then bring the bow back down.
If you’ve been pinching a little, or you’ve slammed a few waves and the boat doesn’t feel well, steer below the weed patch because you need to build speed anyway.
A beneficial takeaway from this thinking is more accurate boat setup. If you are having to pinch too much with the jib luff backwinding to keep the boat at the proper heel angle, something has to change.
You’re overpowered. You want to achieve the proper telltale look with the proper speed and heel angle.
In this overpowered case, in the short term you can ease the main, add more backstay or drop traveler. Or, if the jib has been soft-sheeted, you can trim it a little harder to match your angle. In the long term, if the breeze is persistent, add more rig tension.
Conversely, if the boat is flattening out, asking for you to press down on the jib, dancing the outside telltale, you need more power. Again, the short-term solution is to trim the main, ease backstay, raise the traveler and ease the outhaul.
If the breeze stays light long term, you can ease rig tension and/or move the jib lead forward. You can guide your setup by paying close attention to the telltales and following the basic rules for light, medium and heavy air telltale flow.
Another way to look at it is to set the boat up so that you can sail to the telltales for the given wind. Get it all right, and you’ll be tough to catch.
If you are having to pinch too much with the jib luff backwinding to keep the boat at the proper heel angle, something has to change. You’re overpowered. You want to achieve the proper telltale look with the proper speed and heel angle.