Most useful old method of seeing wind direction without a windex or instruments?

johnalison said:
It is not uncommon to see racing boats with quite a large area of the luff of the main slack or backed, so I'm assuming that it can't be that wrong. The leach tell-tales are useful to get the twist right and avoid over-sheeting.
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+1. My brother - who is a lot more up on sail trim than I am - doesn't worry too much about the leading edge of the main being backwinded; he reckons most of the drive comes from the trailing part and that making sure the training edge streamers are flying is the vital bit.
 
Dee Bee said:
When I raced catamarans and apparent wind was critical, I used VHS tape tied to the shrouds. Much better than ribbon or wool as it still works when wet. and thicker and more durable than cassette tape. The problem now is finding anywhere that sells old vhs cassettes.

A question - why do yachts not use tell tails on the main? Lots have leech tell tails but not seen many with mainsail tell tails?
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We do!!
 
LittleSister said:
Wool?

What happened to the ancient maritime tradition of using a bit of cassette tape? ;)
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I favour some easy-listening but classical can yield good results; it's getting harder to find tapes being chucked now the hipsters have latched on.
Dee Bee said:
When I raced catamarans and apparent wind was critical, I used VHS tape tied to the shrouds. Much better than ribbon or wool as it still works when wet. and thicker and more durable than cassette tape. The problem now is finding anywhere that sells old vhs cassettes.
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House clearance cos are probably somewhere to try, or car boot sales(do they still occur?).
 
steve yates said:
I never used to have one, then when i got one i found it really useful, especially for beating.
On my wee boat I have just noticed its gone! Vanished :)
Be a while till I get near the top of my mast for any work so back to traditional methods.
Rather than just guessing by the wind on your cheek, whats have folk found the best method, piece of wool tied to each shroud or some kind of burgeee hoisted up the mast? Or are there any other neat tricks I can play with?
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Sorry can't help myself. Howabouts wet finger I theair
 
sail a dinghy (best do this after dark) stark naked and blindfold. Within a couple of hours (and once you've been swimming a few times) you'll learn to feel every nuance of the wind just on your face and body - you'll sense when it's shifted or even when it's about to...
extreme but hey...
 
johnalison said:
I have this awful feeling that people believe what I write.
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Some people are very trusting, particularly of those who have taken the Hippocratic Oath. As for me, I was pondering on the quality of "grass" that you needed to heighten sensitivity to wind pressure on the skin.:).

Mike
 
Mk 1 eyeball. Directions of waves, shape of sails, wind on face, seabirds hovering.
Cloud direction. All from memory this as I went over to the dark side about 10 years ago.
 
johnalison said:
I have this awful feeling that people believe what I write.
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It's not uncommon on this forum. I once repeated some advice I had received from a local about sailing through some tricky passage amongst rocks and keeping close enough to one to be able to throw a cigarette end onto it.

Another poster berated me for littering.
?
 
In winds over 50knots as we have been having recently, I find casette tape is little insubstantial. An old 78 tied with 5mm line to the backstay gives a really good indication of wind direction. Also as the wind drops below 27 knots the 78 dips below the horizontal. :)
 
Tomahawk said:
We are all fitted with apartment wind indicators. Simply turn your hesd round till you hear the same level and tone in both ears. You s now starung directly into or down wind.
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...as someone with hearing aids, that's only if your hearing in each ear is identical, which, when you do a hearing test you will find is extremely unlikely
 
I usually find that my hat usually follows a trajectory directly downwind, though a correction needs to be applied, since this is true, or even ground, rather than apparent.
 
I normally have my Musto collar turned right up & my wooly hat( without which I could not sail) pulled tight over my ears. I have a windex to the masthead aerial as well as a raymarine wind instrument at the mast head. I would find it extremely difficult to sail without one or the other.
I do have wollies on the sails but these are unreliable when running dead down wind.

So if I lost both I would do the obvious. Go up the mast & repair them ASAP, or fit a flag halyard & hoist a burgee on a bamboo cane to clear the VHF aerial as we did in the 70s.

In emergency I could fit a pair of windex from my dinghy that used to clamp to the front of my mast at gooseneck level. These were angled so could be seen on either tack. This was handy as it saved a crick in the neck from constantly looking up. I would probably cable tie the arms to the shrouds, poking forward, to clear the mainsail when on the run
 
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