Hi sesaero,
When on a beam reach or going downwind and a gust hits, you should pull away and release some mainsheet. You should pulll away just before the gust hits (anticipate the gust by watching 3/4 over your shoulder). When the gust eases, you should point up slightly and trim in slightly again. Beam reach and downwind is the opposite to upwind sailing.
The diamond wires should not be firm or tight. When you push the two wires towards the mast with moderate hand pressure they should be able to touch the mast (evenly) about 12” above the diamond wire anchor point. Set and forget.
To help latch and release the sail:
- make sure the rig tension is loose, not firm.
- make sure the boat is head to wind.
- release the boom off the sail.
- trim the top 1” (2.5cm) of boltrope off the head of the sail. Use a hot knife to remove this. It provides no strength to the sail as the headboard takes all the load at this point. By removing this piece it will allow the sail to go up higher when hoisting on and off the hook.
Feel free to view my boats own Facebook page. It has dozens of photos with tips and tricks shown in various photo albums. Many photos have comments next to them with advice.
https://www.facebook.com/Hobie18catamaran/We use an 8:1 mainsail downhaul system to help the crew de-power the mainsail as the wind increases. Once you are on trapeze, start pulling the wrinkles out of the mainsail. This will help control the boat and allow you to pull more mainsheet tension on. The more the wind blows, the more the crew pulls the downhaul on, the more the skipper pulls the mainsheet on, the faster and more controlled you go. Over 15 knots of wind with two on trapeze you should pull the downhaul as hard as you can.
If you look at the videos on my boats FB page there is a great example of the acceleration you get when the downhaul is pulled on to the max. Watch the video called “Saturday 2nd December 2017”. At 0:48 in the video the downhaul is pulled one last time and the boat accelerates so much the crew floats backwards due to the acceleration. From that point onwards the mainsail can be sheeted tight and the boat points much higher and goes much faster than the other boats. Note: this is a highly competitive fleet of Aussie H18’s.
There are lots of other videos also with starts, tacks and gybes for your learning and viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
John Forbes
H18 sail # 490
Boat name: 18@heart