No excuse now....

[Guest]

This is my second season in amatuer racing on my 35ft yacht. My crew and I are always last and this year we've fallen even further behind!

HOWEVER, the hope is that we're just having our bottom scrubbed for the first time in 18 months (too lazy).

Anyone suggest how much speed improvement i might gain ? There was 1.5inches of slime/weed/barnacles on the bottom.

 

[Guest]

A knot at 5-6 knots, possibly more - they won't be able to see you for the spray.

 

[Guest]

Competitive...

Thanks James, that gives me hope. Maybe I should take it more seriously too. I learnt of one boat last week who removes their toilet to save weight (I thought permenantly fixed items were illegal to remove).

Other take out seat cushions, etc whilst we leave everything on board including 5 crates of beer and a large spare fuel cannister of diesel!

 

[Guest]

Re: Competitive...

You will get far more increase in speed by improving your teamwork and doing the things you have to do more quickly and in good time - anticipation is worth about 2kts average speed, reaction is worth another 1kt. When you have a team which is working as well as it should then you worry about bottom, sails and such. Remember that being first round the ww mark means you may slip a bit backwards as the better/faster teams get past you, but make them work for it - if you are last round the ww mark, it's you who'll do all the work. Concentrate on teamwork and starting.

 

[Guest]

Good points

Unfortunately, as it is "a bit of fun". We never have the same crew each week except for a couple of core people so there is a new learning curve each week.

Is there any ideal way of choosing the shortest path on a beat to the windward mark ? At what point is it best to tack ? There has to be an ideal balance between minimal number of tacks and not going "away" from the ww mark.

 

[Guest]

points

There are several things you can do to make the boat go faster. More important are the things you can do to make the boat go fast in the right direction.
First things first.
If the hull is covered in weed you will go considerably slower in all conditions. This applies particurally to the foils (keel and rudder) cleaning them will give you a noticable increase in speed.
Any excess weight will slow acceleration and reduce performance. Remove any non essential extras especially from the ends Be sensable but even moving the outboard or anchor/chain from the ends to the centre of the hull and low down will make a difference.
Get one of the faster sailors in your club to look at your sails and rig and listen to what he/she says.
On to your sailing. Look at the consistantly top boats, see which way direction they sail. Look at the tides if you are sailing with the tide your speed over the ground will increase. If you chose to sail a course against the tide then you will end at the back of the fleet. Read about using a compass. Sail the boat flat. There are many areas where your actions will make a dramatic differance. Do not be retissant in asking advice from others in the race. Best of luck

 

[Guest]

I'm surprised you even bothered to finish with that much weed. Might as well have towed one of the marina pontoons behind you.

Ignoring tactical issues, such as sailing in the most favourable direction, a small difference in boat speed counts big time.

My own experience is that a clean bottom with near worn out sails (but trimmed to their best advantage) beats a dirty bottom with newer superior cut sails every time.

What do I count as dirty? Just slime makes a difference.

If you don't use the boat enough to keep the fouling down, scrub off against a wall or post between tides no more than a week before each race.

I promise you you'll notice a real difference, particularly in lighter winds.

 

[Guest]

You can gain a lot..........

We had a new club Fulmar, antifouled and put in the water in March. In June we made a passage, intended to be Ipswich - Copenhagen, but found the boat far slower in June than in March. We put in to Terschelling, dried out, found three quarters of an inch of barnacles over the whole underwater area. We scrubbed, no, scraped, off then got started again.

Before the scrub, the maximum speed of the boat under engine was less than five knots. After scrubbing, she happily made seven and a half. Before scrubbing, we found the log read low; we measured it against a Walker log (with which the speed measurements were made) and found it nearly 20% slow. After scrubbing the sensitivity returned to normal. The barnacle/limpet growth had built a tube round the log paddle-wheel, and shielded it from the water flow.