Tac-Tics [Tak-Tiks] n

When you last raced in a large fleet, did you ever sail up the middle of the first beat and get passed by boats on both sides? This is one time when staying near the middle may not be so conservative. Especially in lighter winds, it seems like there is usually less air in the middle of the course than there is on either side. That’s probably because a large fleet acts like a snow fence, and the wind has a hard time getting through all the sails. As a result, the breeze tends to bend around and lift up over the bulk of the fleet (which is in the middle). If it’s windy or if you’re near the front of the pack, the middle may work alright. Otherwise, keep an escape route open toward either side. In light air, even if you go the ‘wrong’ way, the extra wind you find on the edges will often more than make up for any distance you lose due to windshifts.

2. Find the next mark before you round this one

One of the easiest ways to lose a race is by sailing to the wrong mark, or by sailing in the wrong direction when you can’t find the next mark. Therefore, be sure to read the sailing instructions so you understand the course and what the marks look like. Before the start, figure out the compass course to each mark. During the race, try to locate each mark visually before you round the previous mark. I usually give this responsibility to one crewmember. As we approach the windward mark, for example, his or her job is to find the reach mark (and show the rest of us). This way, when we come around the mark, we already know where the next mark is, and we can plan our strategy.

3. Keep taking wind readings during your start sequences

Most successful racing sailors do a good job of getting out to their starting area early so they can get a solid handle on windshift patterns. However, once the race committee fires the warning gun, many sailors start getting ready for their start and stop watching the wind. This is a mistake for a couple of reasons: First, the wind does not stop shifting during your starting sequence. And second, most importantly, the wind shifts that occur in the last ten minutes before your start are the most critical ones for understanding what the wind will do right after the start. So when you are sailing around the starting line, keep taking wind readings by going head to wind or sailing closehauled on starboard tack. And make sure you are clear of other boats’ wind shadows when you do this.

4. Use your weight to steer, especially in lighter air

Whenever you angle your rudder off centreline, it creates drag and slows you down. So, before turning with your tiller or wheel, use weight placement (i.e. angle of heel) to steer. This works especially well in light air and smaller boats, but it will help some in all boats and conditions. When your boat is flat, the part of the hull in the water is symmetrical (left drawing). This makes the boat continue forward in a straight line. But when you heel the boat either way, the underwater shape is no longer symmetrical and the boat wants to turn one way or the other. Whenever you want to turn to port, for example, make the boat heel over to starboard (right drawing). This makes the underwater hull shape on the starboard side much more curved than on the port side, and the boat will turn to follow that curve. Whenever you want to turn to starboard, move crew weight to heel the boat to port.

5. Use your sail trim to steer, especially in heavier air

In heavier winds, moving your weight around may not have much of an effect on the boat’s angle of heel, especially in bigger, heavier boats. That’s why you have to use your sail trim to help you turn the boat and keep it going fast. Whenever you want to head up, trim in your mainsail (1) so you put more wind pressure on the aft part of your sail plan (2). This will push the stern slightly further away from the wind and rotate the bow closer to the wind (3). Conversely, whenever you need to bear off (e.g. duck another boat), ease your mainsail so your bow will tend to turn away from the wind. If you use your weight and sails effectively, you should be able to turn the boat without the use of the rudder.

6. Keep your weight low and out of the ends

If you want to go fast, you have to maximise your boat’s forward motion and minimise the amount of time it spends bouncing up and down. When your boat pitches and seesaws, this uses up precious power and creates extra, unwanted turbulence around your sails and underwater foils. To minimise pitching, concentrate the weight of your boat’s gear near the point where your keel meets the hull. In other words, remove as much weight as possible from the bow, stern, mast, etc. Keep the crew weight concentrated together, especially in waves and stay low in the boat to reduce windage.

7. Don’t confuse ‘velocity’ shifts with ‘real’ shifts

Most windshifts that you experience on the racecourse are just that: changes in the direction the wind is blowing. Sometimes, however, what looks like a shift in wind direction is really a change in wind velocity. When you sail into a lull, it temporarily looks like a header, and a puff at first appears to be a lift. However, don’t treat these velocity shifts like ‘real’ shifts. If you tack on a velocity header, for example, you will be tacking into a lull. If you’re not sure whether you just got a velocity shift or a ‘real’ one, wait a few seconds and see what happens.

8. Worry about bad air and shadows in light wind, but not so much in a breeze

If you want to sail fast around a course, you have to keep your air clear. When you sail in the wind shadow of another boat, you have less wind velocity and more turbulence. As a result, you will usually sail both slower and lower (or higher, on a run) than boats nearby that are in clear air. The slowing effects of wind shadows exist in every wind condition, but they are definitely more pronounced in lighter wind. That’s because when a stream of slow-moving air is broken up (e.g. by a boat’s sailplan), it takes a lot longer for that stream to re-form and return to normal. In light air, you may feel another boat’s wind shadow as far as ten boatlengths away. And when you are in that shadow, you might have only half as much wind as boats in clear air. This is a problem because you were already underpowered, and now you have even less wind. In heavy air, on the other hand, the wind stream re-forms much more quickly, so you might feel a wind shadow only five or so boat lengths to leeward of another boat. In addition, that shadow won’t hurt you so much because you still have a relatively large amount of wind.

9. When you’re going fast, trim harder and point

The key to going fast in a sailboat is having a good sense of feel, so if you are trimming a sail or steering, you must tune into what the boat is telling you. One guideline is if the boat feels good (i.e. it feels lively, like its going fast through the water), trim the main a little harder and point the bow up slightly higher. If the boat still feels good, push it a little more. When eventually the boat starts to slow, ease the mainsheet a touch and bear off a bit. Once you are going fast again, begin trimming in again. This is a never-ending cycle of using the feel of the boat to keep it going fast and pointing high at the same time.

10. Set up on the line to windward of a slow boat

When you come off the line at the start, what’s your biggest worry? For most sailors it’s usually the proximity and speed of the boat on their leeward side. In a perfect world, it would be better to have a slow boat on your lee bow. So when you are making your final port-tack approach before the start, look for a slower boat that has already set up on starboard tack near the place where you want to start. Tack right behind (and just to windward of) them, and hold your position there until the gun.

11. Whenever possible, get a good line sight using the pin end

If every starting line was actually marked out on the surface of the water, it would be easy to get good starts. But things don’t work that way and that’s why at many starts you have either a huge mid-line sag or a number of boats that are over the line early. The best sailors use a number of techniques to help them get a good start. Perhaps the most popular and helpful tool is getting a range with the pin end of the line and a point on the distant shore behind it. This ‘line sight’ can tell you exactly where you are relative to the line as you approach the start. Take your line sight using the pin end if at all possible. This is because you normally face the pin end as you make a starboard-tack approach, and it can be hard to see through the race committee boat. You should also check your line sight after the five-minute gun as the RC can move the line up until the preparatory signal. To check your approach, also get a good sight from below the starting line. This gives a ‘safety’ range and will help you know where you are as you approach the line to start.
12. Hold back before the line until just before the gun and then accelerate

If you have a good line sight and you know exactly where the starting line is, don’t broadcast this to everyone else. If you sit right on the line with 30 seconds to go, for example, all the other boats will inch up toward you and crowd you at the start. A much better idea is to hold back below the line in the midst of the mid-line sag. By staying lined up with the other boats, you encourage everyone to think they are close to the line. Then, when you have just enough time left to get to the line, trim in and go. You can often get a jump of at least a boat length on those around you.

13. When you’re luffing up to the start, do it on a closehauled course

A popular technique on the starting line these days is to line up in the position you like, luff your sails and hold your position. Then, when you get close to the start, you trim in your sails and go. One mistake some sailors make when doing this is to luff on a course that is too close to the wind. This creates at least two problems. First, in order to get going you have to turn the boat to a closehauled course, which is difficult when you are going so slowly. Second, and more importantly, you can’t trim your sails in right away because you are nearly head-to-wind. The solution is to luff your sails while you’re on (or slightly above) a closehauled course. This way you can trim in and accelerate immediately without turning.

14. Set your traveller so the boom is centred

On most boats, good mainsail trim is the key to going fast upwind, and one of the best guidelines for trimming your main properly is to carry your boom in the centre of the boat. Of course, there are certain conditions when you don’t want your boom on centreline, like in very light air or when you are overpowered. But most of the time this setting will be in the ballpark. To get your boom in the middle, first trim your mainsheet until you have roughly the right amount of twist in the sail (getting the upper batten parallel to the boom is a good guideline). Then pull the traveller to windward until the boom is centred. Often when it looks centred it is really too far to leeward, so check this from the transom.

15. Set your chute so the luff rises vertically off the pole

There are many guidelines for how to set the position of your spinnaker pole, but the one I think works best is to place it where the lower luff of the spinnaker will rise straight up from the outboard end of the pole (see diagram). If the luff angles out to windward when it leaves the pole tip (A), then you need to square the pole farther aft. If the luff angles off to leeward (B), then the pole is over-squared and you need to ease the guy forward. The person trimming the guy must watch this constantly and adjust the guy as necessary.

16. When other factors are equal, sail the longer tack (or gybe) first

On a beat or run, you almost always have a choice of two tacks to sail – either port tack or starboard. Besides wind variables and the positions of other boats, perhaps the most important factor in choosing which tack to sail is your position on the course. What you need to know is how far you must sail on each tack to get to the next mark. Unless you have a strong reason to do otherwise, you should sail the longer tack first. This is the tack where your bow is pointed closer to the mark, it’s also the tack that takes you toward the middle of the course. You want to head toward the middle of the course because this will give you more options to play the wind. If you sail the shorter tack first, you will get to a layline quickly, and that significantly limits your choices.

17. Always roll your boat through tacks

Never tack more often than is necessary tactically or strategically because you almost always lose distance. When you do tack, the best way to minimise speed lost is to roll your boat through the tack. Roll-tacking is an acceptable form of kinetic propulsion, so you should practice this and use it as often as possible. The single most important tip is to wait until you are almost head to wind to start rolling the boat hard. This technique is obviously critical in smaller boats and lighter winds, but it will make a difference in any boat and any condition, so use it all the time.

18. Stay between the next mark and your competition

The idea of ‘covering’ sounds like such a simple principle, but it can be complicated to put into practice. The basic idea is to draw an imaginary line between the boat you need to beat, and the next mark. If you position your boat on that line, you will be between your competition and the mark and, in theory, it should be impossible for them to get past you. It’s not always easy though, because you must consider other factors. For example, should you sail a header to get into a covering position? How do you cover more than one boat when they are split apart? You have to watch the big picture.

19. Trim your mainsail so the top batten is parallel to the boom

Getting the right mainsail trim is critical for good boatspeed in any condition and in almost any boat. If you overtrim the main, it will stall and you’ll go slow. If you undertrim the main, you’ll be faster, but you won’t be able to point. The key to good performance is finding a happy medium that works for both speed and pointing. The best, easiest guideline is to trim the mainsheet so the top batten lines up with the boom. In light air and lump, you will probably want enough twist so the top batten angles off to leeward a little. In flat water and moderate air, you can trim the mainsheet quite hard so the sail has very little twist. In these conditions, the top batten may actually angle to windward. Most of the rest of the time, set your trim so the top batten is roughly parallel to the boom, and you’ll be in the fast range.

20. Heel your boat to windward when running

For several reasons, most boats go faster on a run if you sail them with windward heel. First, this helps neutralise the helm and sail with a straight rudder, which reduces drag. Second, windward heel reduces wetted surface area by lifting some of the wider aft sections of the hull out of the water. Third, it lets the spinnaker hang further away from the mainsail’s wind shadow. And fourth, it gets the mainsail up higher where there is more wind. How far should you heel to windward? One guideline is to go far enough until your helm disappears. Beyond that, you just have to try different amounts and watch the nearby boats to see what works best. Does windward heel always work downwind? No. It does not work so well in light air (where you have to sail higher angles and you need leeward heel to keep the sails full), and on boats with asymmetrical chutes (which sail higher angles).

21. Look for ‘speed wrinkles’

Is it good to race with wrinkles in your sail? This depends on a number of factors like sail shape and the wind conditions. In general, though, it seems fast in most boats to leave the mainsail and genoa luff tension loose enough to have some horizontal wrinkles in the lower half of the luff. This keeps your sail powerful and helps pointing. Exceptions are with heavy air or older sails, when you need more luff tension to make the sail flatter or draft forward.

Article extracted from America’s Cup tactician David Dellenbaugh’s Speed & Smarts newsletter on racing tactics. www.speedandsmarts.com

Credit: David Dellenbaugh’s Speed & Smarts, presented by ART Marine Photography: 20: David Cass.