Learn to refine it by chasing good old boats around the buoys
Issue 124: Jan/Feb 2019
I am not a very skilled sailor. I’ve sailed thousands of miles in all types of weather, from Glacier Bay to Panama, in several different boats I’ve owned.
I’ve spent more than 12 years living aboard and I spent the past three years crossing the Pacific Ocean. Yet, when it comes to sail trim and steering, I’m practically a neophyte.
That’s not false modesty. I didn’t always think I wasn’t a good sailor. Gunkholing around Southern California’s Channel Islands in my 20s, aboard my Newport 27, I thought I was Master of the Universe. It’s only when I got into trouble, and learned there was much I didn’t know, that I reassessed.
Several years ago, I watched “The Shape of Speed,” an excellent on-the-water video filmed in 1979 and featuring Lowell North and friends; it covers mainsail, headsail, and spinnaker trim. The audio is clear and the supporting video footage is excellent. The onboard presentation is calm and matter-of-fact, and the narrators often use the words “basic” and “simple.”
I don’t think I understood 50 percent of what Lowell and friends said then, and I probably wouldn’t understand much more today.
Out sailing, I’ll trim the main using the mainsheet and traveler to position the boom for the respective point of sail. If there is no sail flapping and the shape is pleasing to my eye and the boat is moving, I’ll call it good. When in doubt, I let the sail out.
According to “The Shape of Speed,” a sailor should move the mainsail’s point of maximum draft (measured by a percentage of the chord length) by taking in the outhaul, easing the baby stay, tightening the running backstay, and adjusting the Cunningham so that it is not too slack and not too tight. Then one should sight the top batten from the edge of the boom and use the mainsheet to address too little or too much twist. Then it’s best to use the leech telltales for more precise trim. Oh, and “in puffy conditions, the traveler must be tended constantly.”
Nope.
I salute the sailing wizards and those striving to learn as much as they can about the nuances of sailing — it’s fasci- nating for many and the learning curve is endless; sailing can be as simple or as complicated as a sailor wants it to be. But I never want an aspiring sailor to be needlessly intimidated by exacting sailing instructors or videos like “The Shape of Speed.” Knowledge is good, the more the better, but after the fundamentals are learned, it’s good judgment and knowing how and when to reef sails that will get someone safely across a bay or an ocean — if perhaps averaging a few knots slower than Dennis Connor.
I think Robb Lovell’s story in this issue about PHRF racing for non-racers (page 26) is important because he starts at the beginning, at a time when he sailed like I do. But then his curiosity was piqued by the folks who spend Wednesday evenings in clusters of good old boats, each frantically getting around buoys as fast as they can — and with smiles on the faces of the crews.
Do these racers also interest you? Are you keen to learn how to squeeze an additional knot, or tenths of a knot, from your boat? Would you enjoy the camaraderie of another sailing community? Then follow Robb’s lead out onto the racecourse and make some new friends. I guarantee that, after your first season, you’ll be a better sailor than most (and you’ll out-sail me every day of the week).
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
