Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Film for sailing nerds

During the last sail of this season, the "Ulabrand regatta", we had a small camera mounted to the tiller.  The wind was from nothing to about 25 knots, boat speed between nothing and 17 knots.  After turning down to a reach after one of the upwind marks, we got seriously overpowered and turned in to survival mode for a while, and did not dare to get up across "the line" until we had double reef.

This is 13 minutes of the 2 hour sailing, the whole chaotic bit with reefing and turning downwind is there for educational purposes.  In hindsight, we would probably have managed well on the reach just moving all crew aft, travelled down and perhaps rolling in the jib.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Thor

I liked the film and the camera setup. By the end one can see that you really got some speed compared to the monos. And a nice slight humming from the rudder..
A question though: how is the shape of the boom-less main with two reefs?
I didnt notice if you used a barber/downhauler?

Regards.

Olof F-22 #100 (also no boom)

Tor Rabe said...

Olof!

Are you sailing yet?
The tone of the hum equals about 13 - 15 knots of boat speed.

The shape with two reefs is excellent - upwind. I only have the sheet - and an inhauler along the "underliket" to make more shape in light air. The problem regarding shape in the main is - independent on reef or not - demonstrated at 6:00 - 6:20 when we try to depower and round up, but when the sheet is eased to let the top out the bottom becomer very deep and powerful. Yes, we should have moved more weight aft, underrotated the mast and voila. Still learning.

Anonymous said...

Tor,

Yes, but I have only made a few tests after the launch late this summer.
Enough to learn about quite a few things that needed to be improved for the next season. Not really surprising, of course.
With the standard rig and a moderate wing mast the boat feels to be just as Ian says very safe (and fast). Which is very well for me especially when sailing alone, not being quite so young and sporty anymore. It is however good to see/know that reefing is not a problem should it be necessary.