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Wayne.B

On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:54:51 -0400, wrote:

I was sailing with a VERY famous sailor one day, and I tried to razz
him about the slight backwinding of his main. He said that on that
particular boat, the best speed at that point of sail was attained
based more on the trim of the genoa, and if it bothered anyone, they
could think of the deformity in the main as a "speed bubble". Doing
anythng to reduce the bubble would slow the boat down.

That's true and not all that unusual in my experience. It does point
to a possible issue with the cut of the mainsail or mast tuning
however. A back winded main is not doing much to drive the boat, only
helping to balance the helm at that point. With a bendy mast you can
usually flatten the main enough to keep it from happening but you have
to increase halyard and/or cunningham tension to pull the draft back
forward.