Bart Senior wrote:
Steering well takes practice.

It also takes good self discipline, or possibly a Zen approach, as *not*
steering is faster! This is what Ozzy meant by being a "tiller wiggler."


... I agree with you 100% about
pointing too high. Most people pinch. It is frustrating to me
to see it and point it out, and then be ignored while the
competition walks over us. The smartest thing a helmsman
can do is listen to his crew when they tell him he is pinching.

Well, the crew should be doing something else besides watching the
telltales. But pinching is not good.

A few months ago I was invited to race on a Beneteau F347 and ended up
helming at the start. I was pinching the boat too much, and let a number
of smaller & theoretically slower boats drive out from under us.
Frustrating. We got it all back though. It was a heavy air race... lots
of fun.



Also it is common for other boats to point higher when
someone else is watching. The idea being--point high when
someone is watching, and get them to pinch and slow down.
Crew will report when someone is pointing higher than you,
and that reinforces the pinching syndrome. The helmsman
freaks out, points higher, and slows the boat down.

Another issue is that boats often *look* like their pointing higher than
they are. The ideal course on a beat is to scallop very slightly,
footing and then pinching. This does a couple of things... if you time
it right, it gets you best VMG through wind shifts too small to tack on;
it puts you in phase with waves & groups of waves, it ensures that you
don't miss any lifts. It also helps you shake off any cover or bury
anybody that you are covering if they're trying to get out of phase with
you.


*****

I've also seen one minor change in rigging make a significant
improvement in boat speed. Which is why I posed this
question.

The one that comes to mind is headstay or forestay length.

Sure. Mast rake is very important, and as you said, increasing it will
help upwind speed but hurt downwind.


Adding one inch on an Express 37 I crewed on moved us up
the fleet from the bottom third to top half overnight. We've
talked about this in past discussions.

Ken Read made a change like this to help him with his
impressive series in last years Etchells worlds.

Sometimes there are breakthroughs in tuning... like when a Brazilian
team won the Lightning Worlds with a mast that was not raked at all...
made their jib look very funny. Their pointing was good but they won by
downwind speed. Now rigs are getting raked more again.... fads come & go!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King