Oz wrote:
Dunno about reefing, just looks like it all nice and flat.

Maybe it's just my eyes... the head of their mainsail looks much further
down the mast than the others.


Does it make a boat go faster to drag the lifelines in the water?


Rarely...but having the rail just clear is the way most sail best.

heh heh some put their rails under very quickly and easily... an old Six
Meter for example, with about 8" of freeboard. Oddly enough this is one
of the the boats I know that sails fastest when heeled a lot... didn't
have lifelines though.

One of the best demonstrations of the effect of heel was in a video of
the match race series, IIRC this one at Bermuda. Looking at a pair of
well matched boats, of the same design, with expert skippers & crews.
From straight ahead, you could see that one responded a bit less
quickly to the gusts, and heeled to about 40 degrees or so while the
other stayed more upright. The one that heeled slid to leeward each
time. They lost a safe windward position and ended up right in the other
boats gas, had to tack away...

Having the rail 'just clear' may be a good guideline until you have a
chance to study the boats performance more closely. But for the most
part, when the wind is up, it's easy to heel too much and think it's
going really fast.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King