Thursday April 20th Training

Despite the very light air, we had three teams out.

Jimmie Cockerill and two of his buddies from Chesapeake Rigging, David Itsel and Mike Meer showed up. Jimmie and David sailed Cardiac Arrest (sporting 8790 sails thanks to John Wyles), while Bob Patterson sailed 8776 with Mike. Tom Neel teamed up with Chris Legg, with Ali Meller as coach.

We focused on boat setup for very light air speed and height, and on having fun ;-)

Key points on setup were:
Rake the mast forward of standard settings. 3'4" is standard, 3'2" works well for very light air.

Ram up for mast bend and a flatter mainsail. A ram of "3" is full power when at3'4" rake. If you leave the ram at 3" and rake forward to 3'2" you have STRAIGHTENED the mast...So you need to go up on the ram when you rake forward just to keep the same bend. And you need to go further up on the ram to get MORE bend.

Ease shrouds to sag jib luff. The jib works better with the luff sagged. I grab the shroud and jerk it (a sharp pull) while watching the jib luff to see how much jib luff sag I have. But easing shrouds causes the mast to straighten, making the main fuller... so you have to compromise between mast bend and jib luff sag.

Centerboard all the way down and raked forward a bit.

Sit as far forward in the boat as pratical. Probably one on each side, up against the shroud.. or crew inboard and up against the mast.

Ali took a number of photos which will be posted shortly.