MBounds wrote:
ronholm wrote:
Ok.. So back to the class legal H16. With the Comptip how many top sailors actually pull any serious amount of downhaul on?
You'd be surprised - the downhaul can depower the sail more consistently than the mainsheet and more efficiently than the traveller. Think of it this way - the downhaul is the coarse depowering adjustment; the mainsheet/traveler is the fine adjustment. Set the downhaul to get it in the range, then the mainsheet/traveler is used to fine tune. Theoretically, the main is optimally trimmed when the mainsheet is two-blocked and the traveler is nearly centered.
That makes perfect sense to me... Yet when on the boat it just looks and feels to me like the comptip is not bending off the same as the rest of the mast, and I just haven't found that sweet spot. (moving targets and all). I think what happens to me most of the time is I get to overthinking stuff on the water, and even though I am telling myself to forget and just sail the boat, I can't let it go.
This weekend I ran the first two races right on Jim Sohn's Rudders ahead of Wessels.. I was sailing way better than I usually do, and was having a great time..
... Well.. The first race anyway.. the second I staged my awesome comeback after a HUGE mistake... but anyway... I was right in the game.. Third race I pitched on a freak gust I didn't see coming (something totally out of character for me while racing... In fact as much as I flip the boat that is the first time ever I can recall flipping at a Hobie Regatta) and cost my crew her glasses and confidence. The weekend was all downhill from there. Sunday watching the tape I am oversheeting.. and doing all kinds of silly stuff.. But besides all that in the lighter air, which I have normally been sailing quite well in, I simply couldn't find the groove. So besides going the wrong way I was down on boat speed ect... I may have just been tinkering to much and not sailing the boat... As I was bouncing back and forth with my theory of using just a wee bit more downhaul in to light stuff to help close off the leech with less main sheet, and doing things by the book and letting off downhaul... Ect.. I just didn't find the right gear.
Wasn't it you Matt who was talking about Enrique sailing around in heavy air not even hardly 'downhualing' the wrinkles out of the sail