I’m looking for a little free advice. I’ve been searching and reading posts on depowering and sail twist with great interest, but I’m still having trouble.

I have a prindle 18-2. I weight 180lbs and my usual crew goes about 230 or so. Both of us are novice sailors. He had never been on any sort of wind powered boat until 4 or 5 years ago with me.

In winds up to about 15mph, I feel like we are able to tune the sails reasonably well making good use of the wind and the boat responds and moves well. In the puffs I can feel the boat accelerate nicely and the tattle tales usually show good flow. The bottom 2 are back on both weather and lee and the top one is somewhere between fluttering back and up.

In winds above about 15mph, we struggle. It feels like the boat gets to a certain speed and just doesn’t want to go any faster. Anything I have tried to do to use the extra power that we have doesn’t seem to push us forward, just on our side. We were out this weekend in what was supposed to be 15-20mph winds, turned out to be closer to 20-25 with 2-3 foot rollers. Nice steady wind, but we just couldn’t find a good grove. I was constantly bleeding air off the top of the sail just to keep us from dumping it. He hardly had a chance to work the downhaul, it was on from the minute we started until we came back to the landing.

With all of this our actual boat speed feels close to the same as on lower wind days. Speed is usually easy to tell because we’ll get a nice rudder hum, and can accelerate just a bit more and the hum will stop. This seems to be about our max speed. This weekend when out, we were rarely able to go faster than “rudder-hum speed”.

Any advice or an explanation of what you do or look for to get over that hump would be great.
Thanks in advance

I have found that on my Nacra 5.2 my fastest speeds are usually when the wind is blowing around 16-18mph, above that I start having to bleed off power.

This is the sequence I think of (but I ain't no expert)
1. double trap
2. downhaul
3. boards up part way
4. decrease rotation
5. traveler out

Traveler down may come in there at several spots.

I actually have a reefable main now so I guess that would be the next step but not something you could do on the water.

It may not be your sail trim as much as your driving. As the wind and waves come up, you do NOT want to be pinching the boat. Pinching (pointing up too high going up wind) is a very common trait with new sailors as they use that to depower in a gust, vs. easing the traveler down, keeping the bows down and going FAST.

If you are pinching you will know because even in big wind your speed will not be all that great and the boat will feel sluggish. So try easing the jib out a bit so it doesn't backwind the main, and travel the main out about a foot, and keep the bows down a bit, do not pinch when a gust hits, ease the main sheet instead, and you will go much faster. BTW, if you are racing, it is usually "faster" to go low and fast than high and slow to the A mark.

When the Alter Cup guys are talking about "Sawing the Main" that's what they are doing, easing the main in the gusts and then quickly trimming it back in as they accelerate. It's best if the crew does it so you can steer in a straight line, not zig-zaging all over the place.

oops.. forgot about that bit of sail called the "jib"
<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

1. Pull on your long johns and read a book, or
2. Take the wife shopping,or
3. Find a nice waterfront bar, have beer and watch guys break their boats up.

I don't do heavy weather.

You might not want to enter any distance events then.

That is the day that you get the Hobie 14 out, I can hold that thing down in winds up to 30!

But if had a boat that was worth more I would probably be more careful.

Certainly not on the Blade. The Tiki is another matter.

Out of curiosity, where do you draw the line? You do have a limit? Right?

couldnt resist <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

If I have a crew on the 5.2 I draw the line at 25mph, above that it is just insane.

On the Hobie 14, with warm water... 30mph, but that is only if I know I can spend hours in the water without being in danger.

ROFLMAO! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Do you have a library of these things?

And, btw, I still haven't been catapaulted through my main. . . yet.

There are those that DO and those that WILL!

It is "There are those who have, and those who will"
<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

ahhhh...Master....the wise one who speaks from experience!

Speaking of mainsails, what did you guy's think of the Alter Cup sails? Glasers?

Well, when the air and water is cold, and the wind is strong enough to where I know I'll be swimming and potentially hypothermic, I'll adopt the tikipete mode of heavy weather sailing. (See day 2 spring fever)

I'll usually draw the line at gusts past 30. At that point it stops being fun and stuff starts breaking.

However, if you're in a distance race, you'll often start in conditions drastically different than you end up in.

Thank you sir! My point is, the guys who started this thread are novices, by their own admission. I just wanted them to realize there is a limit.

Here's where I'll throw in my completely heretical belief that it is stupid that some of the new high powered designs can't be effectively reefed. Especially for distance racing. I believe a boat with properly shortened sail can be safer and faster than one that's doing all the depowering things just to live. But that's just my opinion I could be wrong...

Just curious from some of the previous posts--is there a difference between "traveler out" and "traveler down"? (Not sure what traveler down refers too...)