The Mild Thing - Light Wind Tips Downwind

Tips for Light Air Speed Downwind (The "Mild Thing") Written by Bob Hodges

Perhaps one of the toughest points of sail to master for sailors new to the A-class and uni-rig catamarans is downwind in light air up to the point where you start thinking about making the transition to the "Wild Mode". With no jib in front of the main, it is important to learn how to trim and steer the boat not too deep or too high for the best VMG.

I’ve had some excellent tuning partners, competitors, and teachers over the last couple of years including Ben Hall, Pete Melvin, Bob Webbon, and Charlie Ogeltree. Here is a summary of setup and technique I’ve learned and currently use:

• Downhaul –completely off (very important), slight wrinkles showing
• Outhaul –ease off to the point where you have at least 6" –8" of maximum foot camber, sometimes more or less is better dependent upon the how light it is and how smooth or choppy the water is. Once you establish the maximum setting, it may be helpful to put in a stopper knot or ball on the outhaul control line so all you have to do is blow the control out of the cleat as you round the weather or offset mark.
• Mast Rotation –You should have a system that will allow at least 90 degrees of mast rotation since this is the approximate apparent wind angle you will be sailing downwind, more is better in this case.
• Traveller –The position of the traveler can vary between all the way out to 4"-6" pulled in. This can depend upon the water conditions. In flat water, it can work to let it out all the way. In choppy water, it can work to pull it in 4"-6" and ease the mainsheet tension to get more twist in the sail.
• Mainsheet tension –Most sailors set the mainsheet tension and cleat it and then focus on steering the boat. A good indicator is the set of telltales placed in the top third of the sail. You probably want enough mainsheet tension to firm up the leech and not stall the top leeward telltale.
• Weight Distribution –For the Boyer boats (Mk. IV, Mk. V, and Flyer), I believe it is very important to sit right on the weather front beam or even better right in front of it. This is probably also the case with the new Bim XJ. You can typically sit just behind the front beam on the Marstrom and A2 boats. What you are looking for is to be sure the transoms are not dragging (the transom wake should be clean and quiet, no gurgling). Moving 12" forwards or backwards can make a significant difference. It does not seem to work at all to sit forward on the leeward side of the boat. This only creates more wetted surface area and drag.
• Daggerboards –both boards max up (but make sure some amount of board is filling the bottom of the daggerboard case)
• Rudders –Most sailors will sail with both rudders down but several of the best sailors in the class feel there is a slight speed advantage to sail with one rudder kicked up. Practice this because if you are sloppy or jerky getting the rudder up or down, you could lose more than if you did not do it.

As you round the weather mark, follow this list to transition the boat from upwind to downwind modes:

• Steer to your downwind course as you ease the mainsheet and traveller, settle the boat down for 5 seconds.
• Release any downhaul tension and rotate the mast to 90 degrees or more.
• Pull up the weather board.
• Pull up the leeward board.
• Raise the windward rudder.
• Once you get the boat setup and on course, you need to get into a fast steering groove. You will probably not be consistent if you try to steer the boat by just the telltales in the mainsail. Most sailors have telltales on the forestays and or a telltale or Windex on the front of the mast. Either way, you want to create a consistent reference that you can steer up or down to and maintain a consistent "groove". On my boat, I put a telltale on each forestay at the height of the spreaders.
• I use the angle between the weather telltale and the rotated leeward spreader as my steering reference. I like the reference this high as it indicates the true wind more accurately. I glance up at it about every five seconds and check the sail trim also. I try to combine this reference with the feel of the wind blowing across my face or the back of my head. Looking forward, if I feel the wind starting to blow on to the front of my face, I can probably steer down. If I feel the wind starting to blow more on the side or back of my head, I will start to steer up.

Steering

Steering technique is very important. The less you move the rudders, the faster you will be. The steering technique I like is to have the tiller extension across the front of my body with it propped on my leg or knee. This creates a hinge point where I can simply flex the tiller extension back and forth with my wrist to steer very smoothly up or down.

"JC" strap

A new tool I have been using since the 2004 North Americans is a "JC" strap. The name comes from the shock cord system used by the Finn class to hold their booms out as they sail downwind in light air. If your boat has the standard downwind rotator like that supplied by Boyer and also on the A2, sailing in sloppy water allows the mast to pump back and forth which is not good for maintaining flow across the sail.

In very light air, you frequently have to put your foot against the mast or boom to keep it at max rotation and quiet. The "JC" strap system is extremely simple. I tie a bullet block to each forestay tang. I next attach a line with two small loops in it right behind the outhaul cleat on the boom. I install a plastic clip on one end of the shock cord, attach to one loop on the boom and then run the shock cord forward through the bullet blocks on the tangs and back to the other loop on the boom.

Pull the shock cord relatively tight and attach another plastic clip to attach to the remaining loop on the boom. Without the mainsheet attached, you will find that the shock cord at tension actually pulls out and up on the boom. I have found the tension of the shock cord effectively holds the rotation in place and does not allow it to pump back and forth if the boat rocks. An additional benefit is realized when you gybe as the shock cord speeds the rotation of the rig. The system in no way gets in my way or affects the sailing of the boat. I don’t think the system creates any significant drag or windage.

Since I have been using it, I feel I have been consistently faster on downwind legs. Winning the light air race at the 2004 North Americans was proof to me that this system has some merit. It only costs about $20 to install on the boat which is a much cheaper alternative than going to another system to lock the rotation.

I hope these tips help you find more downwind speed. Now get out on the water and start practicing!

Bob Hodges

A personal account of an 'A' Class Cat sailors battle against the odds

‘Hey, do you fancy sailing around the Isle of Sheppey? ‘ my mate Rick said on the phone one day, a couple of years ago. ‘…its in three weeks time!’ he added.  ‘Isn’t that the South East’s version of the Appalachain mountains with it’s own micro climate and local currency?’ I quipped, ‘That’s the one!’ he replied.

So, I sailed my first Isle Of Sheppey race in my Rutland based Topper Topaz 16CX. The perfect boat, it would appear, for a couple of long distance rookies, having, it appears, full off-road capability for those tricky little grounding moments.  We loved doing it!

Fast forward to Sept 11th 2010.

I was awoken from slumber, in what has variously been described as my ‘Retro Motor home’, by the sound of the wind rushing through the trees under which I was parked at the Catamaran Club on Sheppey.  That sounds a bit… blowy, I thought, but dismissed it as a feature of my camper.  Its ability to amplify and joyfully enhance any given weather condition has been commented on, light drizzle sounds like a torrential downpour.  However, this time it was accurate.  It was, indeed, quite blowy.  Force 4-5 in fact.  I know this because I looked at the live weather link on the IOS club website, just after I had checked their webcam feed to see if our boats were still in view and not off to a car-boot somewhere in Kent behind a white transit with an England sticker on the back.

So, I got up, ate a black pudding – its what you have to do when you are from the North, and jumped into fellow Rutland ‘A’ classer Dave Lowe’s car to get the rest of our kit, sails etc. to the club.

The cat start was due at 11.30, so we had plenty of time to rig and check things thoroughly.  I altered my spreader length and Dave studied the offshore South Westerly wind with increasing disquiet.  It was his first time, so had no idea of what to expect, other than something to do with a bridge.   The organization on the day at the club is pretty impressive.  Cars and trailers arrive on the sea wall where they are rigged and then taken to the beach to await their various starts.  Spring tides mean that the slow handicappers and boardsailors, due off at 10.00 have to trek some way to get floating.

The start was postponed 30 minutes to allow everyone to get sorted and then we just watched the boards zip off, followed more sedately by the slower fleet on the first 9 mile leg to the end of the island.

Eventually time came for me to get 150sq ft of finest carbon reinforced Mylar into the air.  At this point Dave started to turn a little green, and the wind went up another gear.  ‘What could possibly go wrong Dave?’ I shouted over the shrieking shrouds,  ‘What’s the worst that could happen?  Well, death, obviously, but give it a go anyway!’ I said.  He blinked a little and said ‘Oh sod it, why not!’  Game on!

Out at the starting area, the water was pretty flat considering.  We milled about a little, some way upwind of the downwind start gate and then suddenly the others all started.  We had somewhat misjudged the sequence by about 3 mins, so, with a ‘Tally Ho Chaps!’ the two ‘A’ cats were unleashed into the force 5-6 wind.

The race is clockwise and the first leg is about Sou-South East.  The wind was a Southwest so; a broad reach is was then.  Now, ‘A’ cats aren’t really known for their downhill performance, especially with Dave and myself on board.  They tell us that you should ‘Wild Thing’ and luff up enough to fly a hull, then gradually bare away as the speed increases, keeping the hull flying.  Wrong - I defy anyone to dare to do that in this wind!
 
We just concentrated heading for the first turning point and not dying.  Now, I have a theory that eventually, if you go so fast, the thrill of the speed will overcome the fear of death.  This was proved correct – we were both hammering along at a good 18-19kts, catching and slowly overhauling most of the cat fleet ahead.  Only the seriously mentally ill ones dared fly a kite in these conditions, as cats were pitch poling at regular intervals.  It was then that we discovered the ‘A’ cats ability to crash into the back of a wave, take green water up to the beam and just come up again for more.  Neither of us ever felt like we were going to get wiped out like some of the Darts around us.  Even when my leeward rudder kept popping up due to a malfunctioning bungee, ‘Das Boot’* just kept blasting on.  Dave was pulling ahead from me, as I had to periodically crawl leeward to get the rudder down again – that was exciting, I can tell you!

We rounded the first point and hardened up gradually onto a fine reach.  This is when, for Dave, the wheels came off.  He was about 100 yards ahead of me when I saw an explosion of spray and his boat went over.  Brilliant!  This was my chance – do I finish him off with a head shot or just leave him?  But in the end, I just slowed right down more out of a morbid sense of curiosity really, but offered to pick him up.  However, a rescue boat was nearby to Dave bravely shouted for me to carry on and to save myself.  Turned out his trapeze wire had snapped – too much strain after that big steak the previous night, I think.  That was the last I saw of him until the finish.  Now I was alone…..

At the end of the island, at Shellness Point, you have to turn right and sail on a beat up the river mouth.  This is where the fun really starts.  Wind against tide.  High wind against spring tide, it doesn’t get much more fun than that!  4ft waves with a frequency to match.  Up one, through one.  Trying to trapeze and point is most entertaining.
 
This was my mental low point.  I was genuinely regretting setting out at all.  Tacking a cat is all about getting the sequence right and carrying speed into the turn so the rudders work for as long as possible.  I tried to go about onto port 4 times.  It seemed impossible to get enough speed to get the bows through the wind.  This is where the usual supreme advantage of the ‘A’ cat is, it’s extreme light weight, is really working against you as the bows keep being blown away.  It got so bad that I even considered gybing!  But then, I managed to pull of a three-point turn, backing the rudders and getting the bows through the wind.  Great!  Now off through those lovely waves again on the other tack this time!  I have since spoken to a few other cat sailors about that area and was gratified to find out that it wasn’t just me being rubbish.  Turns out, we all are!

Now another issue suddenly entered by mind - Sandbanks.  I remembered on the map that there were a few in the river entrance so decided to stay near the big cardinal nav buoys.  Any thought about racing tactics had long gone by now.  I had to beat the course above all.  Trapezing is a great way to power up the boat.  Getting your feet taken away by a big wave so you are dragged along parallel to the boat isn’t.  After the third time I was getting bored of that, so just sat on the side and hiked out like a laser sailor.

A couple more tacks, as close to the banks as I dared allowed me to eventually lay a line right up the river.  My earlier rig adjustments hadn’t worked and my pointing was appalling.  I was a good 2-3 points lower than the Unicorn I overtook half way up the river.  But I also noticed that he was tapering much higher as well, so I gave it a go again.  Five minutes later I was being dragged along like a harpooned dead whale again and had stopped seeing the funny side by now.
With the Captain Pugwash cartoon waves behind me I started to think about hunting down the boats ahead. One by one I passed them, some of them even managing a smile as I suddenly took all their wind, tea-bagging them into the river.  Feeling guilty about doing this, I eventually only reserved windward overtaking for the flashy and coolest looking crews.  Good Karma I thought.
All by now seemed to be looking better.  The strong wind was very gusty in the river, but there were hardly any waves.  My GPS speed recorder states my highest speed of the race, some 23kts on this leg.  You could water-ski on that! 

At North Ferry, the river bends almost 90 degrees right.  I decided to stay in the middle of the river and bore away onto a broad reach past a very smelly factory complex and started to prepare myself mentally for the highlight and singularly unique feature of this race.  THE BRIDGE.
In order to do a full lap of Sheppey, it is necessary to pass under two bridges.  One lovely great lofty affair carrying the dual carriageway to Sheerness and  the older lifting bridge for the original road.  The rules state that you have to pass under this bridge on the Southern mainland side of the river.  This bridge is less than 13ft clearance at full tide.  A 9m high ‘A’ cat mast won’t fit, as don’t any of the others.  So, an ‘It’s A Knockout’ style capsized boat race under the bridge takes place in front of tens of highly amused spectators.  In the early days, the approach was quite easy and open, leaving plenty of space for the various boats to come in, be capsized and pushed/pulled under by willing helpers, unfortunately none dressed as huge Gonks or the like.  However, recently a rival boat club has built a steel pontoon nice and close to the bridge, which very much restricts the access to the bridge for more than one boat at a time.  This year, that club even decided to moor an extra steel barge at the end of this pontoon just for a laugh and flatly refused to move it for the race despite being requested to.  The brotherhood of the sea, eh!
So, I arrive at this bridge luckily in a gap in the boat traffic, jump off  and get capsized.  Das Boot is pulled through in good time.  However, I had pulled up the daggerboards in their slots, but not removed them, as they would then have fallen off, and probably sunk.  When the boat was righted, the starboard one dropped fully down in its slot.  Thinking I was clear, as I was chest high as I jumped on, I promptly sailed into a submerged concrete jetty extension, probably placed there by that other club, for this very purpose, and rammed the board one inch into the rear of the daggerboard slot, splitting the hull for 3 inches and bringing me to a total halt.  Exhibiting signs of grief and distress, I jumped off and capsized the boat again to check the damage.  The dagger was stuck fast in the hull.  Great, I thought, now I have the world’s first keelboat ‘A’ cat.
After a quick local search, one of the helpers found a block of wood with which I used to hammer the board forward back into its correct slot and allowed it to be raised and lowered as usual.  The crack closed up but was leaking.  So, off I went on a reach again, narrowly missing yet another steel pontoon as I put my rudders down again.  Only 5 miles to go, and all downwind at various angles.

I still stayed in the centre of the channel and started to try to catch all the boats that had passed me during the bridge incident.  A couple of Solo dinghies capsized whilst gybing right in front of me and, if a cat can do a four wheel slide to avoid things, it did do.
 
Not far to go now.  Past Sheerness port, broad reaching past the odd crashing RS 200 when my starboard rudder popped up.  So I thought I would leave it up anyhow and gybed around Garrison point for the final reach to the finish on the starboard tack.   Then, as I was starting to ‘Wild Thing’ guess what?  Yes, the port rudder came up too!  Lovely – I now have a boat going 15kts with no means of directional control.  Dumping the mainsheet, I got the starboard rudder down again for the last time and carried on to the finish.

2hrs 35mins on elapsed time.  The 7th fastest lap of the day. Ah but here comes the rub. ‘A’ cats do not have a very favourable handicap for some reason – they have no hankie to wave to make us faster downhill, yet they are still rated about the same as an F18.  Granted, they are up there with the fastest of the big cats upwind, and do it with far less fuss.  That is why I was placed 59th overall.  However the game was the winner Brian!  I beat the course and that was why I did it.  Dave finished  7 minutes later after also sticking it into a sandbank at 18kts, sending him around the mast like in swingball.

Lessons learned – don’t try to tune the mast unless you actually do know what you are doing and why. Also, ‘A’ cats don’t try to kill you in high winds contrary to what you lower bowel is telling you - they just lap it up and come back for more, and at no point did I ever really feel it was going to get out of control. And finally, get fitter not lighter.

Anyone for the Forts Race next year?
 
* Das Boot is what I christened my boat.  Its German registered you see..

Gordon Upton
GER 510