Light Air Sailing

You Need Wind? Courtesy of the Mesa Model Yacht Club Like most people I arrive at the lake on a sailing day hoping for that beautiful breeze. You know, somewhere in the mid-range of number one rig and just oscillating enough to make picking the right shifts interesting. This is the way we all (or at least many of us) spend so much time getting our big rig right and letting the smaller sizes fend for themselves until needed. But, there are often days (especially in winter) when we arrive at the lake to find only the merest of wisps of wind. It's interesting to watch other people's preparations in rigging their boat for these occasions. Most just stuck the rig in the same settings as last week and launch, hoping for everything to just happen. When they're on the water the boat is thrown into a tack, sheets are pulled on at a great rat of knots, and everything is generally jerky. You might be able to get away with this sort of behavior when there is more wind to compensate for small errors, but in light airs all this is magnified. And a regularly heard saying is 'I just can't seem to get the boat going today', plus a generally defeatist attitude, along with a subconscious hatred of light airs which makes matters worse.

Real World Experience

I'm writing about this subject because it was shown in graphic detail the other week at my own club on a very light day where we were handicap racing. And despite the scratch boats giving the long markers nearly ninety seconds, the scratch boys were still winning despite having to fight their way through the fleet of thirteen boats. It all came down to attitude, patience, boat set up, and keeping your sticky fingers off the control sticks.

Many people do not realize that the boat slows down every time they touch the rudder. The rudder IS A BRAKE. Chucking the boat into a tack may look good and the owner having thoughts 'oh boy it tacks fast', but has forgotten that this violent tack just killed all boat speed, and in light air this takes a long time to regenerate. Meanwhile the skipper beside him slowly eased his boat into the tack with a minimum of rudder and came out of the whole thing about two boat lengths in front of our hard and fast does the trick man.

Minimum rudder in light airs means minimum loss of speed; and speed in light airs is what it is all about. Speed means better attached airflow on the sails, more power to drive through any waves, and more lift being generated from the keel, which will aid pointing. But, before we go any further; lets look at some major contributors to successful light air sailing.

Critical Setup

Your boat setup is critical. All too often I see boats on light air days with everything on far too tight and fittings that are just way too heavy for the job at hand. Try a little experimentation with a leaf out of the late Ben Lexcen's book. 'If it doesn't break. It's too heavy'. Graham Bantock supplies a really nice boxed section for One-Meter booms, but I believe it is for mainsails and not jibs. On a 1-M it is so much overkill on the jib for what? Stiffness? A little spring in the boom will help the jib twist off with gust response in heavier airs, so why not try a 10 mm OD arrow shaft from the local archery shop (find in the Yellow Pages). It's about on third of the weight of the box section and will allow the jib to swing more easily on light air days. Also look at getting extraneous paraphernalia on the boom.

A little thought or a good look at a competitor's boat will most likely reveal a better option. If you must retain a bowsie on the booms for sheet adjustment, then move them as close as possible to the pivot point of that spar to reduce the moment of inertia, and use some elastic to hold them snug to the boom. In light air the weight of the bow is enough to pull them down the sheet and change the entire sheeting angle of that sail.

Another thing I see are boats set up with no easy adjustments on the forestay or jib luff. The ability of easing off the jib luff for light air is, I believe, critical, as well as the ability to ease the forestay to alter mast rake. The mainsheet post is designed as a method of pulling the boom as close to the centerline of the hull without pulling down on the sheet. In other words, the vang is used to control mainsail twist and the mainsheet is used to control the sail's angle to the boat. If the mainsheet post is too far below the boom, then as soon as the main is sheeted hard on it will pull down, thus reducing upper sail twist, which will stall out the top of the sail and reduce speed. There is quite a lot of wind sheer on light days so sails should be loose and twisted off at the top. Install a vertically adjustable mainsheet post.

Mr Smooth

Smoothness is the essence of a fast light air sailor. He/she moves the rudder as little as possible, and re-trims the sails with equal smoothness. None of this ripping on the sheets at the bottom mark with the helm hard down. This will not only stop the boat, but also completely disrupt all the airflow over the sails. The net result is a boat literally stalled on the exit from the bottom mark, jammed up into the wind and sliding sideways rapidly, as there is no attached airflow on the sails to drive forward, and no forward motion of the boat to generate lift.

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a very necessary requirement for light airs as everything moves in such slow motion. All tactical and strategic moves must be planned well in advance.

Little games like out-pointing a competitor on your windward hip at the start should be avoided at all costs as the end result is both of you slowing down and the fleet getting away. If you find yourself in this position and you want to tack, then your starting strategy went amiss somewhere. Just settle down and drive the boat for speed.

In most one-design classes like the 1M a good start is critical, and starting with the maximum speed will most likely give you that half a boat length jump to get clear air