Hi all,

I would be interested in how you depower your cat in heavy gusts.

Say we have the following situation: You are sailing in wind stronger than the design wind, i.e. you already have used some of the possibilities to depower (cunningham, maybe main traveler a little out, maybe you have opened the slot by letting the jib car a little bit out) and you are double trap. For the mean conditions you are now sailing comfortably. Now the wind is quite gusty (at least one gust a minute) and with quite strong gusts (i.e. you can not hold down the boat only by luffing)

In order to avoid the boat coming up too much and thus loosing speed, in a gust you usually have to

* tighten cunningham or
* loose main sheet/jib sheet or
* open main traveler

or even a combination of these. I would be interested in how this is done in the different classes. What I have heard, the fast Hobie 16 teams open the traveler in gusts leaving the sheet tight, this is done by the crew. How do you handle it? (for racing)

Here's my approach;

You should never luff unless it is your last resort - luffing is slow.

In moderate conditions the first line of defense is downhaul. Once that becomes ineffective, start working the mainsheet easing no more than 12". If you have to ease more than that, start moving the traveler down until you can still control the power with the mainsheet.

How is this coordinated skipper/crew? For example: crew both or crew downhaul, skipper mainsheet etc.? Is this type of handling typical for F18 or your personal style?

Im principally interested in what you do when the gust strikes, i.e. the 1-2 seconds of reaction to the gust in order to control the boat, not the general depowering.

Hi Claus -

I am normally crew, and I have sailed with a fair number of skippers. Generally, crew handles all control lines, with the skipper taking the main only for a few seconds during big changes. In the conditions you describe, I think your crew would probably only have to worry about main trim, as the traveller is already down and the cunnigham is at max setting.

So if you have the cunningham at less than max in a gust you try with cunningham first and if you can't hold down the boat you let out main? After the gust you reverse settings I suppose.

If you see the gust comming you should let the main or traveler out so you will be ready when it gets to you. If you are letting the sails out right when the gust is hiting you that would be good. If you wait until the gust hits you to let the sail out it is too late and you just pop up and don't get the forward speed. The best sailors can really read the wind and can time the sheeting to the wind pressure.

Crew will continue to adjust cunningham as conditions pick up, but if you're getting knock-down gusts less than a minute apart, I'm betting you need that cunningham all the way down. I generally keep the traveller all the way UP until the cunningham is all the way DOWN. Mainsheet trim is the only adjustment made in-between making those finer adjustments.

ps - many classes develop a cheat sheet like on page 34 of the Capricorn Owners Manual at http://www.ahpc.com.au/pdf/Capricorn%20F18%20Owners%20Manual%20v1.2.pdf

At least for me, if the gusts can be controlled with the downhaul, the skipper generally hangs on to the mainsheet and can ease it if a big gust hits. When it starts to get past the point where downhaul is cutting it, the crew starts to work the mainsheet and only occasionally readjusts the downhaul set for a good average setting. I find it very difficult to drive smoothly while I'm trying to crank on the mainsheet at the same time.

Usual de-powering sequence

1, Downhaul to max, once you are still overpowered
2, Move rotation from pointing at the shroud to pointing at the outboard end of the back beam, once you are over powered
3, Move the traveller out, once you are over powered
4, Let the mainsheet out

You will also need to play the mainsheet as you cannot (usually) react quickly enough with mast rotation or traveller, so in reality you set 2 and 3 as a course setting and then play the mainsheet, if you are letting too much mainsheet out, you need to revist 2 and/or 3. Also note, when playing the downhaul, this twists of the top of the sail making it flatter, you then MAY be able to sheet in harder again now to reduce drag while keeping the same power.

You may also (as you say in the initial question above) move the jib cars out etc.

I think it largely dependents on the shape of the upper halve of the mainsail. On the hobie 16 there is much sail area there and the mainsheet mainly sets the leech twist at halve height. I guess that is the reason that H16's tend to use the traveller as you say.

On my boat, an F16 with a medium squaretop, I find that we do not use the traveller unless we are under spinnaker and can't used the mainsheet itself in fear of overloading the mast top. On all other course and conditions we set the mast rotation, downhaul, outhaul and traveller to suit the average of the conditions. This means that during the gusts we need to shed power quickly and fully. The F16 is a nervous little bugger and adjusting the downhaul is often too slow. Both in depowering and in accellerating away at the end of the gust. For these reason we found that our boat responds best by having the crew work the gusts with the mainsheet. We totally forget about the jib. Pretty much this means that I go out of my way to keep she out on the trapeze. From that position we find that the crew has an excellent feel of when and where the next gust is coming. Right before the gust hits she lets out some mainsheet and continues doing proportionally with the onslaught. Then at the peak of the gusts she starts pulling the mainsheet back in, again proportionally with the strength of the gust.

We find that this keeps our boat flat and makes it accellerate during the gust often with a sharp jump ahead when done right. Absolutely thrilling when done right.

As the skipper I'm holding the downhaul and when she needs to work the sheet to much, meaning that she has to sheet out and in more then an arms length, then I readjust the downhaul or some other trim setting. We try to have the crew only sheet in and out without repositioning the grip on the sheet. She (and also I when I'm crewing) will bend our knees when that is required. You loose righting moment that way but only for a very short while and this is compensated by the accelleration just a few seconds later.

I'm not at all sure whether you can copy this method on the H16.

Wouter

Gust response for H16;
assume that main is block to block and jib slot is open.

Crew eases main sheet
Helm eases traveller
crew tightens sheet back block to block
once main is block to block, crew continues to pull sheet which then hauls traveller to windward so helm takes up slack
hey presto - you are back where you started!

this takes a bit of practice but is great to see when it is done well.

I often luff in response to a gust. If the water is generally flat and you don’t need the power to drive through the waves I think you can get away with it for short periods. After all from the point of view of the sail there is no difference between a luffing and dropping the traveler.
On a related subject it is not appropriate to hold a steady course when a gust hits. The gust will cause the apparent wind to move aft so the correct response is to head up to compensate.

Very interesting answers, thanx a lot all!

Teamvmg, the combination of sheet/traveler work is very nicely explained, we´ll give it a try. One probably has to open the main sheet a little bit in order to get that traveler car sliding on the H16 (this is what we do when round the upwind mark).

Wouter, your method sounds quite easy "to implement", we´ll try too. However, if the fast guys open the traveler, they do it for some reason. On the Tornado to my knowledge they also work the main sheet. Would be interesting to know why on some cats one method is preferable. Someone knows??

I think however that a little luffing (without taking the drive out of the boat) is important, one can easily gain a few meters upwind in each gust.

Jake,

is it mean that until the gusts can be controlled with the downhaul, the crew hold the downhaul line in his hand continually (uncleated), and adjust it continually ? (Similar as just it would be the mainsheet ?)

our downhaul arrangements don't lend themselves to that - the cleat is aligned for it to stay cleated and the line is a bit small to hang on to those loads that long...but yes, the crew (whether its me or someone else) is constantly working it in and out on a regular basis. Some boats respond to this much better than others. The I20 eats it up but I've found that the F18 only likes this in a much narrower range of wind strengths.

One thing I do in addition to the normal depowering techniques to regain control in puffy conditions is sheet out my main and foot off so I can quickly turn power into speed and then use that speed to go to weather while I trim in. I've used this or h-20s,18s,16s, sea sprays and nacras and so far been effective.

Patrick Padilla

the last sentence of Mr. David Lennard's answer was insightful.
there are various factors to consider. gusty winds are frequently offsore winds and have big shifts so steering is a big factor. it helps if you can predict if it's a lift or header before it hits and be heading up quickly on a lift ect.
if you are talking big winds and seas to match then you need to foot off more whilst beating to windward so loosening the sails exactly as the gust hits is more important than heading up. or is it? steering is pretty darn important. briefly luffing by sheeting out in a death gust is going to be faster than flipping or pinching up so high that the boat takes a while to get going again. certain boats benifit from easing the jib as well in a big gust, even on a beat.