Do most sailors really know how to sail?

I think many sailors thinks they are better than they are because they have boats that sail very well!
 
pmagowan said:
You are rather assuming that sail trim is the only factor at play. What about clean air, tides, route taken, antifoul, weight, and even the competitiveness of the skipper. I don't know what the true figure would be, and you may be right that it is less but I think the main point is that most people are simply not racing. Cruisers are mostly trying to get there in a reasonable time while enjoying the ride.
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I agree in general, however on the specific case of the RTI (When we can assume that everyone is at least trying a bit and following their interpretation of best route etc.) there are massive differences in time between very similar boats, and of course choosing the best route is part of sailing.

I don't actually think this is necessarily a bad thing. I was merely refuting the statement that no attention to sail trim etc can get you to within 10% of your boat's optimum. It can't. If you just hoist, sheet and forget you'll be more like 25% + down.
Fine if that's what you want, but if it's a conscious decision at least be honest about how much faster your boat could go if you were trimming it properly.
 
Having "moved up" to our Westerly Griffon at the beginning of this year from ten years of racing dinghies (mostly) around a small, gusty, shifty lake fairly successfully at a club level, I reckon I probably know how to sail.

I'm pretty certain I haven't yet worked out how to sail a Westerly Griffon well however.

That said, in the small handful of races we've so far joined in with, we've done "okay" and generally finished mid-fleet, so there is some promise there that we're on the right track. Our sails may well be somewhat shagged out, but they are always properly set.

It's the whole "over-canvassed / under-canvassed" thing I'm still struggling with for the moment, and knowing when to reef and when to shake the reef out. Never had that question to worry about with my old Enterprise dinghy, it was (and I jest) just a case of screaming at the crew to hike out harder ;)
 
I agree with Flaming that 25% as an average is probably about right but it will vary hugely depending on sailing angle, wind strength and sea conditions.

Eg the best case scenario for most sailors would be flat water, 12 knots of breeze, on something between a fetch and a broad reach where I would expect the boat speed differences to be made are less than 10%.

The worst case scenario would be a beat into 25+Knots of wind and waves where the differences between best and worst would be over 100% as with a poor setup you just won't get anywhere in those conditions.
 
Ingwe said:
I agree with Flaming that 25% as an average is probably about right but it will vary hugely depending on sailing angle, wind strength and sea conditions.

Eg the best case scenario for most sailors would be flat water, 12 knots of breeze, on something between a fetch and a broad reach where I would expect the boat speed differences to be made are less than 10%.

The worst case scenario would be a beat into 25+Knots of wind and waves where the differences between best and worst would be over 100% as with a poor setup you just won't get anywhere in those conditions.
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A gentleman never beats into the wind!

I do agree though, this is probably where you need the right set up.
To show just how bad I am I had a race with my auto pilot. I set it to follow the wind (we were beating) and watched the boat speed. To be honest it was good.
I then sailed roughly the same stretch of water and hand steered. In bits I was better by I lost far too much speed by trying to sail too close to the wind and lost ground.
It beat me quiet easily because I though I could sail closer to the wind and basically I am worse at helming the boat than the auto pilot is.
 
flaming said:
I agree in general, however on the specific case of the RTI (When we can assume that everyone is at least trying a bit and following their interpretation of best route etc.) there are massive differences in time between very similar boats, and of course choosing the best route is part of sailing.

I don't actually think this is necessarily a bad thing. I was merely refuting the statement that no attention to sail trim etc can get you to within 10% of your boat's optimum. It can't. If you just hoist, sheet and forget you'll be more like 25% + down.
Fine if that's what you want, but if it's a conscious decision at least be honest about how much faster your boat could go if you were trimming it properly.
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Yes, I am sure most cruisers would confess to a lack of high skill levels when it comes to sail trim. It starts with the basics, which sails to put up, how much and how far in you sheet them. Often this is the only level a cruiser will go to. Some might take a look at that bit of string dangling from the edge of the sail and decide to pull on it from time to time in a lackadaisical way to see if something happens. Others might have read a PBO article on where you place your jib blocks and get the crew to give them a tweek.

What they are likely to find is that there is an insignificant difference to their rather tenuous attempts at perfecting sail trim and that focusing their attention on the lime slowly working its way to the bottom of their glass and devising a solution to that problem is of significantly greater importance, and one to which they are likly to have significantly more success in resolving.

As I said, I would like to know a lot more about sail trim simply for the love of knowledge and I do intend, with my next boat, to get some instruction on the matter so that I can at least test the boats performance. In the meantime my knowledge comes from reading and practice in a cruising environment where the angle of sun on the foredeck and what side of the cockpit the rum has rolled to are often considered greater priorities by the crew, and even the skipper! :)
 
Nostrodamus said:
A gentleman never beats into the wind!

I do agree though, this is probably where you need the right set up.
To show just how bad I am I had a race with my auto pilot. I set it to follow the wind (we were beating) and watched the boat speed. To be honest it was good.
I then sailed roughly the same stretch of water and hand steered. In bits I was better by I lost far too much speed by trying to sail too close to the wind and lost ground.
It beat me quiet easily because I though I could sail closer to the wind and basically I am worse at helming the boat than the auto pilot is.
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I do not race (especially after being hit by a yacht with a pro skipper who did not know how difficult it is to duck behind with too much weather helm)

Absolute boat speed upwind isn't everything. Having the VMG displayed in the Raymarine Multi instruments stops me from sailing too close to the wind. Ofter better to be a bit slower but go in the right direction faster.

When I had a new mainsail made a few years ago, I insisted on getting tell-tales. They make trimming a whole lot more accurate

Other than that, if I or SWMBO ever thinks about reefing, then we throw in a reef

TS
 
pmagowan, I'm really not disagreeing! I fully appreciate that there are plenty of people for whom sail trim is a low priority, and that's absolutely fine.

I only wanted to point out to the poster who thought that by not paying any heed to trimming he was only 10% below his optimum that he was probably extremely optimistic.

The only time that I feel sad for other sailors and what I see as poor trim is when I see, as I do quite frequently in the Solent, someone struggling to make ground to windward in less than ideal conditions with poor sail trim then give up and motor. That's the time that I think a little bit more knowledge of sail trim would have made that sailor's day more enjoyable as they could have sailed more and motored less.
 
flaming said:
pmagowan, I'm really not disagreeing! I fully appreciate that there are plenty of people for whom sail trim is a low priority, and that's absolutely fine.

I only wanted to point out to the poster who thought that by not paying any heed to trimming he was only 10% below his optimum that he was probably extremely optimistic.

The only time that I feel sad for other sailors and what I see as poor trim is when I see, as I do quite frequently in the Solent, someone struggling to make ground to windward in less than ideal conditions with poor sail trim then give up and motor. That's the time that I think a little bit more knowledge of sail trim would have made that sailor's day more enjoyable as they could have sailed more and motored less.
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I know what you mean and I suspect you are right, I was just taking the P. :)

One thing that I have always done, and which I expect many cruisers do, is to race every boat you see going a similar direction. Of course this is a gentlemanly affair where they don't know we are racing but I suspect they are racing us too. The trick is to remain nonchalant so that there is no hard feelings should you win and no embarrasment should you lose. I find it is the one thing that drives my crew and I to put more effort into which bits of string to pull and which bits to let off.

Of course, even here I am being slightly facetious because there is a certain pride to seeing that your boat is well trimmed and sailing. I have a tiller which I think is a particular advantage as I can feel, long keeler as she is, when she starts to come to life. When you get that tingle running up through her bones and into yours you want to keep it there. I wish to know more but I suspect that racing is the prime way of developing this skill and competitive racing is not something I have any interest in and I would only spoil the race for others by not taking it seriously enough.
 
dylanwinter said:
I am also not sure that many of my fellow twin keelr sailors really know how to make them go. You cannot let them heel to much otherwise that windward keel gets too close to the surface and starts to cavitate in a most unpleasant way.

The twin keelers need to be sailed upright like a dinghy. That either means reducing sail or stuffing it into the wind during the gusts

D
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Dylan
this may start an even greater debate but just luffing into the wind is not the fastest way to treat a gust of wind when sailing up wind. It is old school thinking.
I race a Phantom & sometimes my Squib when not cruising & used to luff in the gusts. I have found out that what i should be doing is keeping the boat level by first sitting well outboard & playing the main by freeing it& tightening it again as the gust eases.

One cannot sit out as such on a cruiser but one can get the crew to play the main a bit rather than letting the helm casually luff (Better so if the boat has a track with useful gear to adjust it & not old knackered ropes & cleats with sticky blocks etc.) It is faster but harder work.

However, it depends on why you are sailing. If it is to take piccies of muddy creeks then no problem, to each his own, but if it is to get from A-B ASAP then you can work at it
 
The first 30 years of my cruising life was 95% racing.
Now I cruise single handed for pleasure & rarely race. (I actually miss the racing scene but the hassle of getting a regular crew who will turn up on time & participate is just too much)
However, if I see another boat of anything like the size of mine then I just have to beat it. I cannot help it. I will start tweaking & trimming as much as possible without making it look as I am trying.

I really love setting my Aeries, checking the speed then trimming the sails to get a bit more. The thing about an Aeries is that it just goes on steering & if you make a sail trim change it does not complain or loose concentration in the way a helmsman might.
As a result one can soon get an idea of where to set sails & how to adjust everything from halyard tension to sheet position etc
 
Daydream believer said:
just luffing into the wind is not the fastest way to treat a gust of wind when sailing up wind. It is old school thinking.
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I'd maintain I'm too young to recognise old school thinking on sight, but I'd agree. Our first race with the Griffon, bilge-keeled of course like Dylan's Centaur, I remember we had a great first leg reaching downwind to the mark and generally keeping up with the pack despite our rubbish start, even overhauling the back-markers.

Then we rounded the buoy and had to beat back. All started well, till the tide fully turned and the wind built a notch, then we found ourselves overpowered in the gusts. Or at least heeling far beyond the point where Dad could comfortably drink his cup of tea.

My instinctive response was to luff up as the gusts hit, which solved the being overpowered bit, and quietened Dad down, but we dropped out the back of the fleet and finished an ignominious last.

Looking at the track later on, you could see exactly where it turned bad, with our track sloughing off horribly to leeward as I luffed up to each gust.

Would've been much better to either play the main (having no traveller worth speaking of), take the time to reef or just tough it out and let Dad mop his tea up from his lap with each gust, as we did every time we subsequently raced, with much better results.

Interestingly, because it's more likely to tough it out than I am and doesn't pay as much attention to Dad complaining that I've spilt his tea, I've also found our autohelm is much better at beating to windward than me :D

As for "gentlemen never beat to windward" around these parts because of the tide and the constraints of the channel I've found at least half of any journey is going to be a hard beat. Sometimes the apparent wind is such that it's a beat both out and back again when the tide turns . . . . . .
 
tatali0n said:
Having "moved up" to our Westerly Griffon at the beginning of this year from ten years of racing dinghies (mostly) around a small, gusty, shifty lake fairly successfully at a club level, I reckon I probably know how to sail.

I'm pretty certain I haven't yet worked out how to sail a Westerly Griffon well however.

That said, in the small handful of races we've so far joined in with, we've done "okay" and generally finished mid-fleet, so there is some promise there that we're on the right track. Our sails may well be somewhat shagged out, but they are always properly set.

It's the whole "over-canvassed / under-canvassed" thing I'm still struggling with for the moment, and knowing when to reef and when to shake the reef out. Never had that question to worry about with my old Enterprise dinghy, it was (and I jest) just a case of screaming at the crew to hike out harder ;)
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Not sure about a Westerly Griffon specifically, but in most of the yachts I've got to know well it's faster to carry more sail than you think. Playing the main up and down the traveller like a game of Pong is the trick to driving on through the gusts, only feathering when the sheet has been eased. Obviously lots of bods on the rail upwind is also required to make this work. It's all about being as fast as possible in the (relative) lulls.
 
Daydream believer said:
Dylan
this may start an even greater debate but just luffing into the wind is not the fastest way to treat a gust of wind when sailing up wind. It is old school thinking.
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Really deserves it's own thread, but yes and no.... You're definitely right that luffing a phantom (or any dinghy) is a bad idea, a squib maybe, I don't know as I've never sailed one but a yacht it's still a really useful tool.

In conditions where you are overpowered in the gusts you do have to have the main actively trimmed, however, in my opinion there is still a role for luffing. What I do in gusty conditions is drive with the jib telltales flying in the lulls, then when the gust arrives I'll be "inside" the telltales. By this I mean that I've gone from telltales streaming to telltales rising at 45 degrees or JUST breaking. And I'll hold that for as long as I can before I feel the keel and rudder start to lose grip and the speed just to drop off - which the mainsheet man should be watching for me. With a bit of luck that's coincided with the end of the gust, and I can get the bow down to power the boat up again whilst the mainsheet man trims on again, and we've gained half a boatlength to windward for no loss of speed. If the gust is continuing we'll need a bit more main ease, and possibly a little kicker ease, to get the bow down for the acceleration phase.

What you cannot do however is pinch for any length of time. That's when you're slow, and you go sideways. And you cannot luff as the gust hits, as you'll never hold it JUST inside the telltales, you have to have the gusts called in by someone on the rail. They'll say something like "Gust coming, looks like a big one, hitting in 3,2,1... And between 2 and 1 I'll start inching up so that when it hits I'm already inside the telltales. That way we don't get any excessive healing, weather helm or spinning out. It takes a lot of practice to get used to that, and a very good mainsheet, and good gust calling too. But it's undoubtably a quick way of getting to windward in a displacement yacht.
 
mrming said:
Not sure about a Westerly Griffon specifically, but in most of the yachts I've got to know well it's faster to carry more sail than you think. Playing the main up and down the traveller like a game of Pong is the trick to driving on through the gusts, only feathering when the sheet has been eased. Obviously lots of bods on the rail upwind is also required to make this work. It's all about being as fast as possible in the (relative) lulls.
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That is obviously true, since that is how racing fleets sail in anything of a blow, ie mostly on their ear, though it doesn't make for comfortable cruising or long cruising marriages.

This thread is starting to dispel my long-held belief that the boats that I pass are being sailed by crack helmsmen and that my skill must be superior.
 
I love threads like this.
It shows me yet again how little I do know and listening to those who do know their stuff is far more interesting and informative than any book.
As a cruising sailor I am often at the helm alone (well i sit close by whilst the auto pilot does all the work).
Please carry on with this thread so I can try and unlearn a few bad practises I have developed over time.
The worst problems for me in trimming comes about with a large swell especially on the beam or quarter which rolls the boat causing the sails to luff. It is just so annoying and no good for the sails and gear to have it flap around and then suddenly fill.
 
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