Hi all,

my guess on breeze is about 8kt with a bit more in gusts, I am 90 kg. and this would almost be enough for me to trap, so I would advise lighter crews should be trapping if wind is at all consistent, in that breeze you can do around 15 kts. boatspeed if trapping which makes it worthwhile.

I would not trap if the wind was very shifty, as you can gybe quicker to follow the shifts and gusts if sitting on tramp, this is especialy true for sailing one up, as it takes longer to gybe. I tend to sit on tramp and go deep as possible though, I have never found hiking to give good VMG. Either trap for max. speed, longest distance to bottom mark. Or sit in for max. depth, shortest distance to bottom mark.

The defining reason to trap is keeping the leeward bow above water, I get to a point sitting on tramp where I have to trapeze off the back to keep the bow up. But once it gets too hairy on trap, it becomes time to sit back on tramp and oversheet main to depower, go slower, deeper and keep bows up.

The defining reason to stay on tramp, is that in the lulls you have to head too high and oversheet spinnaker to keep hull flying, this is bad VMG time, not good.

Just my experience, for what it's worth.

Regards Gary.

Hope this makes sense.
Copied from post 22/11. Re. Video of this event watch Paul fly.