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The Shame of it all!


W. Micawber

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Outpointed by an Optimist Pram. Where can I sign up for the Ray Frechette School for Remedial Sail Training?

Okay, the bait worked on me :)

Now, how about the sordid details...

what were the conditions?

how close in proximity were the two boats?

what were you sailing?

what are the rig details for your boat?

how many degrees on the compass between your tacks?

This should be interesting

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Well, let's see --

I had full sail up on my CS 15. The winds were flukey blowing around 8 mph and gusting to 15 on occasion. I was pretty close to the Optis as my course took me right through their practice course and a bunch of us were on the same heading. I noted that the Optis were pointing about 5 degrees higher than I was, but when I tried to adjust my course and sail to theirs, I would start to luff. We could not have been more than 20ft apart at the time. Seeing this, I bore off and tried to get out of there as fast as possible and hoped the 7-8 yr old skippers did not notice. :D I did notice and was impressed by how weatherly that little boat was.

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I had full sail up on my CS 15. The winds were flukey blowing around 8 mph and gusting to 15 on occasion. I was pretty close to the Optis as my course took me right through their practice course and a bunch of us were on the same heading. I noted that the Optis were pointing about 5 degrees higher than I was, but when I tried to adjust my course and sail to theirs, I would start to luff. We could not have been more than 20ft apart at the time. Seeing this, I bore off and tried to get out of there as fast as possible and hoped the 7-8 yr old skippers did not notice. :D I did notice and was impressed by how weatherly that little boat was.

Sounds like, since you were among their fleet and had several references to compare against, your comparisons would seem pretty useful. The Opti is a known and rigidly controlled entity - in terms of their rig, sails, and foils - so their polars should be well known (not by me) so maybe someone (PAR?) can speak to where their upwind VMG maximizes in degrees off TWDirection.

PS: A little sleuthing found this http://eprints.utas....aunders2002.pdf - which suggests that the Opti can indeed sail well to 45 degs off of True Wind (see figs 13 and 15 to correlate the simulator polars to Bethwaite's on the water measured data) -- and keep in mind that's with what are essentially flat plate daggerboard and rudder.

Among the various CoreSound boats that are reported on in this forum there are occassional references to improved performance for rigs that have changed to sail track (compared to their previous laced-on or sleeve-luff). But I have yet to find reports of measured performance such as speed (gps or knotmeter) and the angle between tacks (measured by compass reading or gps)

The 5 degrees difference on each tack is a substantial amount (to me) - as it means double that between tacking angles.

Assuming decent shapes for the foils on your boat I would have expected you to at least match the Opti's 45 degrees going upwind.

I'm wondering now if the cat ketch by it's design is somehow just not up to going to windward as well as the single sail configuration of the Opti.

Over many years it's also not unusual to see vast improvements in boat performance for a particular boat as the skipper picks up one or two critical skills in sail trim or helming and has a real breakthrough. The Annual B&B Messabout would be a great opportunity to compare and contrast the real world effects of various rigs and sail trim on upwind performance among the various CoreSound boats.

But -- it might be too much to overcome those darn 7-8 yr olds with their quick reactions to wind and waves.

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Tom,

I have found in my CS 15 that when winds are below 10, it does not point as well as when it gets to 10+. I don't know if it is the rig or the skipper's lack of knowledge with respect to sail trim in lighter conditions. But once in the 10+ wind range, look out! My boat can sail pretty darn close to 45deg off the wind. It is remarkable to me how the gusts tell the difference. As I recall, I did not have the luxury of the gust while sailing with the Optimist fleet. I do not think that the cat-ketch can out point a main and jib boat, and it certainly can't outpoint a well sailed Optimist in the conditions I experienced yesterday. Of course, it could be that I was just sailing in dirty wind caused by the Opti as I was leeward of him. :D

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Tom,

I have found in my CS 15 that when winds are below 10, it does not point as well as when it gets to 10+. I don't know if it is the rig or the skipper's lack of knowledge with respect to sail trim in lighter conditions. But once in the 10+ wind range, look out! My boat can sail pretty darn close to 45deg off the wind. It is remarkable to me how the gusts tell the difference. As I recall, I did not have the luxury of the gust while sailing with the Optimist fleet. I do not think that the cat-ketch can out point a main and jib boat, and it certainly can't outpoint a well sailed Optimist in the conditions I experienced yesterday. Of course, it could be that I was just sailing in dirty wind caused by the Opti as I was leeward of him. :D

Very interesting about the big difference in different conditions (dirty air aside ;)

I'd be curious to learn what trim changes you make as go from light to heavier winds. Do you change both main and mizzen?

Would you explain a bit more about response in gusts. Do you mean that the boat will point higher during the gust itself? When that gust happens, are you able to just drive (steer) up to windward a bit more - or are you also trimming sails too?

Does it not point just as well in the steady 12 - 15 range?

Do you find that the helm balance changes as winds change from light to heavier? or just when you get a gust?

When sailing in steady 8-10 knots, do you have some distinct (3 or 4 degrees) weather helm? Is it the same on both tacks?

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Tom,

In steady winds, 10-20mph, I trim the main until the aft end of the boom is nearly over the inside of the inwale/deck and then trim the mizzen in until the tell tales stream aft. This will be quite a bit inboard in comparison to the main -- the mizzen boom is situated midway between the inner side deck and the c/l of the transom. In this configuration, I get consistent speeds to windward between 6 and 7 mph. She goes so nicely and with such little fuss that you hardly feel it, unless you are going into a good chop and getting a face full of spray. By the time the wind has hit 20, I have hardened the snotter up as much as it will go for it will be time to reef soon (if single handing I reef around 15; when I have crew I reef between 20-25). I have very little weather helm at this point, in fact, it is so slight that I would be tempted to call it neutral. I cannot say that even in winds up to 30mph (reefed of course), that I have had to wrestle the helm. This is the most pleasant boat, handling wise, that I have ever sailed.

In gusty conditions and during a gust, the boat wants to drive closer to the wind, if I am already sailing close hauled, all I need to do is make some slight adjustments on the tiller. Very little sail trim is necessary here. Fiddling with snotter tension during such flukey winds between light and gusty gets too exacting and finding a sprit tension that is not too loose and not too tight for the conditions is what I seek and then just leave it there.

In light winds up to 10 mph, I generally have the snotters eased to induce more draft and I do ease the main boom out over the side deck some and ease the mizzen to suit. Thinking about my local conditions (the inland lakes of Western Michigan and Lake Michigan), once the wind is under 10, it is rarely steady and very capricious. So I am always adjusting the tiller and the sails looking for the sweet spot. I can't say I have, as light air sailing is one of my greatest frustrations. In these kinds of conditions, I have neutral helm to lee helm. Trimming the mizzen in takes care of the lee helm. Some say you can get the cat-ketch to self steer, but I haven't found the magic for that for very long. Left over chop or boat wakes do not make it easy, in my estimation. The feeling of the helm does not change much from light to heavy winds and I sense no difference in the feeling of the helm on either tack.

NB: When reefed, I sail with the main in the third mast step. Helm balance is no different than with the two sail configuration in light to moderate winds. As I noted in another thread, I bet I could put the mizzen in the reefed position in winds above 30 and sail comfortably and confidently into the 40 mph range.

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I have foudn that ensuring your sprits are long enough to allow you to tension up the snotter to flatten the sail makes a HUGE amount of difference in pointing the CS series.

Year one at Small Reach Regatta Grahama nd Tom walked away form me with abandon on the upwind legs as they were pointing higher.

Graham chided me for not trimming the snotter more. I told him it was fully trimmed as it was. He then chided me thatthe builder must not have made the sprits long enough then.

When I go home I pulled out the blueprints and compred them. My sprits were actually an inch longer than spec.

Made new longer sprits and noticed at year two I could outpoint everybody at the regatta.

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Ray, how much longer is longer?

Long enough...

Sort of like how long is a piece of String??

OK, here is the scoop.

Go out sailing and tnesion the sprits fully. If there is no room for more tensioning you need longer sprits. How much longer?? I don't know. Play withthe sprit. How much more adjustment do you think you need so that when fully tensioned as tight as you get it there will still be more rope left to be able to briung the blocks closer together??

On the other hand you don't want the sprit so long that you have the mizzen sprit hitting the main sail when you tack.

Also, the sprit angle changes as sail is raised or lowered on mast. IE with sail fully lowered the sprit needs to be longer than when the sial is a bit higher upthe sail track.

Just remember when making a new sprit it is easier to cut it shorter than it will be to make it longer.

I would opt for a bit too long and go sailing and cut down if needed...

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WM,

From your detailed description, a few things come to mind...

1) overall it sounds like maybe there's generally not enough weather helm with the current setup (it's possible that trimming the mizzen to kill the lee helm you have is actually over trimming the mizzen compared to it's optimum setting)

2) draft can be a killer hard upwind - take some draft out of the sails in lighter air (as far as draft goes my rule of thumb: very light= flat, moderate= add draft, heavy air = back to flat)

But, I (my opinion) wouldn't expect to be able to go upwind with more draft than the conditions (wind & waves) call for - there's a sweet spot for every set of conditions -and- neither will the boat go upwind without 3 or 4 degrees of weather helm (no matter how much or little load there is on the tiller) if you can't get those few degrees of helm your boat needs to be balanced better.

It could be as simple as too much draft for the conditions and repositioning the blocks or even lengthening the sprits could remedy that, it could be a small difference in mast rake (which is not uncommon), it could be the cut of the sail (that would be more apparent if after you try to get more flattening with the sprits the sail is still too drafty), it could even be some asymmetry in your foils :(

Start with the easiest modification to test for better results

It might be worthwhile to revisit the positioning of the various blocks at the clew and at the snotter.

It would be easy to reduce the effective length of the sprit by inadvertently locating the various blocks too far from the ends, same goes for the snotter hardware on the mast (depending on how it's rigged.

Might try temporary lashings to reposition blocks as a test.

Some sails are sensitive to luff tension when adjusting draft, so try that as well.

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Divided rigs are not as weatherly as cats. It's that simple. The mizzen is not offering a lot of drive in the back wash of the main, so it's just along for the ride, providing a good bit of drag too. This is common to all double stick rigs, with the exception of a few, quite odd things, only found in Bolger's little rig cartoons in his rig book.

A cat ketch would be doing well, to tack through 45 and possably pinch it down a tad further, at considerable lose of speed. A cat rig on a CS, with similar aspect ratio and appendages, will easily drive this tacking angle down into the mid to high 30 degree range.

Yes, it's substantial (5 degrees). A boat with 5 degrees better pointing ability will chew you up on a race course. Within the first 100 yards, the higher pointing boat will get to your inside and have a boat length on you, just because it's sailing closer to the mark than you can.

Lastly, getting spanked by some skilled skippers, regardless of age is nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe a reason to focus on sail set and rigging adjustments. I too had the sprit length issue on the Core Sound I built, eventually making an adjustable length dowel on the outboard end of the booms (instead of new booms). So, read your tells and stay away from seriously skilled 9 year olds, with a few hundred hours of helm time on their Opti.

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Tom, PAR and Ray:

Thanks for the observations. I doubt my sprits are the trouble. They come nowhere near engaging the block when I have them pulled in hard. I had not thought about harder set sprits and flatter sails in light air. I will try that next time I'm out and about.

I ought to sail with those 9 yr old Opti skippers more often. Maybe I'll learn a thing or two.

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Tom,

My foils are probably shaped crudely indeed. I have no background in racing and can't say I understand foil shape. I did give them some shape as per the plan set, and these seem to work well enough. I am more a wood butcher than a craftsman. My sailing and woodworking have been learned while doing them (especially building boats). Ten years ago my wife laughed at the idea I could build a boat since "I couldn't hang a curtain rod," according to her. I've built 4 boats in 10 years and have learned a thing or two.

The cat-ketch is a new rig to me, so I am still learning its secrets. I imagine I will discover many more in the future. As far as setting the mizzen, I am still experimenting. It does not take much adjustment on the sheet to induce weather helm, and given the speed and handiness with which she sails, I am not convinced that I have pinched the mizzen in too much. Nevertheless, you have given me much to think about and I will attend more carefully to setting the sails in light of your observations and see if there is any improvement.

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