How do you optimize your upwind performance?

[Danny Jo]

Freestyle did pretty well on her most recent cruise, with head winds for only six of the fourteen days and insufficient wind for two. The highly implausible figure of six days of fair winds might at first glance appear to upset the well-established Scuttlebutt dogma that there are only three sorts of wind: too much, too little or from the wrong direction. (We cheated, of course, by choosing an itinerary to suit the forecast wind.)

But head wind days do tend to drag a bit, giving the opportunity for the crew to indulge in a bit of competitive, er, knowledge-broking, sometimes less politely referred to as bullshatting. One of our more vigorous discussions arose out of one of Freestyle's less endearing characteristics: she lacks a nice sharp cusp letting the helm know when she's nicely on the wind. I like to sail fast and free, but keen young crew members generally feel the need to pinch up and up until we start loosing way. We discussed the utililty of the VMG (velocity made good) displayed by Charlie Chartplotter. This VMG was actually the vector of the speed resolved in the direction of the (upwind) waypoint and therefore, however well you sailed, gradually declined from the potential maximum (dead downwind of the waypoint) to zero (when the waypoint was 90 degrees dead abeam). Freestyle's on-board mathematics graduate reckoned that using Charlie's VMG to optimize upwind sailing therefore made sense only when one was dead downwind of the waypoint - it makes you pinch progressively as the waypoint comes abeam.

Old Phil the ageing AP Navigator was much more canny, although to be fair he did have feeds, on wind direction and speed, to which Charlie was not party. Phil's VMG is the vector of the speed over ground resolved in the upwind direction. He even plots a curve showing how the VMG changes with angle on the wind, although you have to redraw it after every occasion on which the engine is used to go upwind. For real time optimization of upwind sailing, however, Phil is no more use to the helm than Charlie because his VMG is only visible at the chart table.

 

[jwilson]

If you put in a fictional waypoint several hundred miles directly upwind, you get a pretty good quick and dirty guide to whether pinching or fast and free are best, and unless you have an exceptionally fast boat it keeps working for qite a while.

 

[machurley22]

I messed up and only voted for feel but meant to include the two for telltales. I also mess about with VMG but with a wee boat, particularly in a fresh breeze, I'm either going to windward a wee bit or hardly at all and it's fairly easy to tell the difference. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

It's a good question however and I'm eager to pick up some tips from this thread.

 

[Norman_E]

I do a combination of things, but mainly looking at the genoa telltales and the mainsail shape, and looking at the wind indicator. One useful trick on my boat is to put the autopilot on, and trim the sails so that the rudder is amidships, on the principle that a balanced boat sails best. That usually means having to bear away little as it is difficult to achieve good balance if pinched up too much, and results in more speed.

On my boat the bimini makes it hard to see the masthead indicator without leaning back a long way, but I do it from time to time.

On my recent trip to Turkey I think about 75% of my sailing was upwind.
Comparison with other boats where I sail does not work very often as so many of them are charter yachts, frequently with inexperienced skippers, and generally with poor sails, e.g. baggy old genoa and in mast main, and simply do not point as high as my boat with a (smaller than standard) tri radial genoa and a new fully battened main.

 

[lw395]

Jib tell-tales are the primary tool.
Second is speed through water.
VMG must be used with great caution as it involves averaging and is backward looking. You can fool the VMG readout by stuffing up to weather, VMG will climb as your heading is higher, but your speed will slowly decrease.
Sailing alongside a similar boat is the best indicator!

 

[Norman_E]

I don't actually bother with VMG although my old VDO Siemens instruments actually give me VMG against the true wind direction rather than against a waypoint, provided you don't enter a waypoint. In my experiece I can outsail most similar boats upwind, simply because I have decent newish sails.

I have regularly found that I can start off downwind and behind another boat and overtake it on the upwind side. I do not normally try to pinch up too close to the wind, but on a recent trip from Gocek to Loryma the wind (when it finally arrived) was almost dead on the nose and I elected to go on the port tack and keep as close to the wind as reasonably possible. Another boat about the same size as mine was ahead of me and well upwind, but elected to sail on the same tack, but further off the wind. They crossed ahead of me and made their tack before me, but by then well downwind. When I tacked the wind rose rapidly to 35 knots, gusting 40 plus, and came round to head me so I motored the last few miles, as did the other boat, and we arrived only a few minutes apart. At the point where we dropped the sails completely I was probably marginally closer to our destination but there was not much in it. Very different tactics over 30 plus miles of sailing had produced very similar results.

 

[lw395]

There are a lot of variables in sailing upwind. The wind direction will change, particularly if an increase in strength occurs. Being the right side of shifts is as important as boatspeed or pointing.
A 2% difference in boatspeed is a lot, but it will be cancelled by a 12 degree windshift.
And then there's the tide...

 

[Norman_E]

Windshifts? On one occasion the forecast was for a westerly, going north-west later. I needed to go almost due west, and needed to set off in order to complete the trip at a reasonable hour. I figured that if I set off on the port tack, sailing north west then I could tack once the wind had shifted a bit to the north, and would probably finish the trip sailing south west on a beam reach. This would entail one long leg on each tack, and take me a considerable distance away from a straight route, which is only a good idea if you are confident that the wind predictions are correct.

The best laid plans...
My plan did not quite work out. At first it was OK, 15 knots of wind from the west and I made good time almost due north-west getting close to the point where I was north-east of the destination and I tacked a bit early to sail south-west. Just after that the wind dropped a bit, then started blowing again from the south-west!

As you say, a wind shift can undo any plan, particularly if it goes the opposite way from the forecast.

 

[Slow_boat]

I don't know what velocity made good means and please don't explain. It will make it all sound over complicated, like articles on tide or taking a bearing, and reduce what is a pleasure to a boring maths class.

 

[webcraft]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know what velocity made good means and please don't explain. It will make it all sound over complicated, like articles on tide or taking a bearing, and reduce what is a pleasure to a boring maths class.

[/ QUOTE ] Erm . . . didn't you forget to put a smiley in here?

- W

 

[[3889]]

[ QUOTE ]
If you put in a fictional waypoint several hundred miles directly upwind, you get a pretty good quick and dirty guide to whether pinching or fast and free are best, and unless you have an exceptionally fast boat it keeps working for qite a while.

[/ QUOTE ]

Top tip, thanks.

 

[Searush]

I have few if any electonics and a tubby ketch rigged boat. If she feels good, I'm happy that she is happy.

I have raced on a Sigma 33 with a professional skipper and learned a lot, but I couldn't be "asked" (thanks for a fine eupemism, Freestyle) with all that palaver when there is a perfectly good engine available if I need to catch a tide gate.

Incidentally I trust there will be a cruise report on the club website, Freestyle.

 

[dt4134]

Find a set of of polars for your boat and you'll find the optimum upwind angle and target speed has already been worked out for you by the designer for various windspeeds. Target speed gives you something to aim for.

The optimum course to windward doesn't change in relationship to a waypoint provided that waypoint is above a close hauled course.

What you are doing in tacking when the VMG falls off is to reduce your exposure to a disadvantageous windshift. There's no justification for pinching, at each point you should either continue on a close-hauled course or decide to tack, depending upon which you think will best get you where you want to be.

 

[alahol2]

What hasn't been mentioned so far is wave direction. It may not be so noticeable in open sea conditions, but certainly in the Solent the wave train is very often not dead downwind from the mark. On one tack you may well be able to sail to the telltales at maximum speed whereas, on the other tack, the waves will stop you and you need to sail freer to make best speed. Similarly positioning relative to the strength of tidal stream can frequently be even more important than sailing efficiently. I guess the 'distant waypoint' may be the best tool to sort out all the variables.

 

[lw395]

That's very true about the effect of waves, you aften need the jib fuller on one tack to get a little more drive, at the expense of pointing.
In a tidal situation, where the tide stream is not constant across the sailing area, you generally need to think about getting the best tide separately from the best upwind performance and maybe compromise between the two, making a judgement of their relative importance at that time.

 

[Slow_boat]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't know what velocity made good means and please don't explain. It will make it all sound over complicated, like articles on tide or taking a bearing, and reduce what is a pleasure to a boring maths class.

[/ QUOTE ] Erm . . . didn't you forget to put a smiley in here?

- W

[/ QUOTE ]

No. It all gets over complicated and something I've enjoyed and done perfectly well by feel for years gets reduced to a confusing mathematical problem and becomes a chore.

Think how difficult walking would be if you were trying to work out how to do it. Same thing.

 

[snooks]

I use a combination of some of those.

Windex to make sure the boat is pointing as high as she should be

Tell tales on the genoa to make sure it's set properly and the genoa car is in the right place so all the tell tale lift together

Tell tales on the main, to make sure they are all flowing nicely and non of them are backing.

Weight on the helm, a slight weather helm

Wave pattern, roughly parallel with the weather bow

Speed, make sure she's going through the water as fast as she should be and any tweaking with the sails is speeding her up

But I also judge my speed/pointing angle against others

 

[mortehoe]

Good to hear that you had a good passage. I've had to take temporary employment to earn enough pennies to buy the new bits for the engine which failed completley by ingressing too much water via the exhaust valve and compressing the con_rod yet again en route for Armadale!!!!

You haven't mentioned the effects of leeway and currents ... and then there are lee-bowing effects which can still work whilst working to windward. I hear groans in the background .... Lee bowing is a real effect that can be plotted with a mathematically inclined computer operator with CAD calling out the heading requirement whilst ordering the trimmers to watch the topmost main telltail flutter and the lowermost genoa/jib flutter whilst hopefully keeping them all streaming properly all at the same time .... ie just stopping the main luff from lifting .... but as you say it can get to the point where doing all the right things you end up pointing in about the right direction but going backwards OTG!!!

You should be developing your polar charts for all wind conditions (having first removed all the current plus/minus's) for each set of sail combinations and for all aspects of wind conditions ..... Still doing mine, but I mostly forget to take the latest readings and plot them /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

but .... if the worst comes to the worst, then providing I have an engine that works and if I have to meet a tidal gate time then it's on with the engine and ..... Over the last 12 years the sailing time to engine hours is very nearly 50% .... and that's dreadful!!!! ... or just short hops to and from Ireland. N Ireland and the Clyde.

Cheers,


N

 

[Danny Jo]

[ QUOTE ]
You should be developing your polar charts for all wind conditions (having first removed all the current plus/minus's) for each set of sail combinations and for all aspects of wind conditions ..... Still doing mine, but I mostly forget to take the latest readings and plot them

[/ QUOTE ] Er, yes, quite, but I'm still working on my compass deviation table - NOW who's nicked the pencil!

Nige, isn't it time you brought Scuttlebutt up to speed on your recent contratemps with the Irish Sea/North Channel? Normally reliable sources report that you returned safely from the abortive trip in spite of a sick crew, a torn knee ligament, fracture of the mast support beam and water in the engine - all without outside assistance and without losing the mast.

Congratulations on the achievement, commiserations on the loss of your sailing season, and best wishes for an early abandonment of those crutches.

Must you work? There's a spare berth on Freestyle for part two of her summer cruise starting in Oban and going anticlockwise around Ireland.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Tack up the cone. Know the sheet lead, traveller and halyard tension positions for the wind strength. Be aware of any tidal help or hindrance. Keep the genoa leech where you want it in relation to the spreaders. Sail to the tell tales. Keep alert for headers and lifters. Sail towards new wind (usually). Even if you're not racing, trim frequently - the breeze in rarely constant. Reef as soon as overpowered - leeway is not your friend.