All you T sailors and fans..... Attach your best Tornado Pics here.
Attached would have to be one of my favorites. This is taken on Sydney Harbour. AUS 2000 Darren Bundock and John Forbes. From memory, Bundy injured his sholder quite bad and required physio just before heading over to Europe.
I have lots of Tornado pics that I took during 2002 National Championships held in Dunedin. Was in a chase boat. If you like these, I can post others. Dave
no gary it works, you just linked the html page instead of the image itself, which Martin-Ranget has tried to circumvent you from obtaining, but since I'm l33t h4x0r I got the image for you:
Re: Best Tornado pics
[Re: MauganN20]
#25853 02/03/0404:05 AM02/03/0404:05 AM
There are 2 things I find disturbing about that pic :
It appears that the tiller extension is dragging in the water, which means that it`s not in your hand ! It also appears that your left foot is ON the rudder, if you add these together I must assume that foot-steering is the latest technique to sailing the Tornado downwind ?
Or is this how Torrie sailors deal with the MASSIVE amounts of leehelm they must be getting, what with their centreboards being behind the front beam & all that ? (Don`t mind me, I`m just kidding.) Torrie is still the most beautiful boat ever built, nearly 40 years later. Attached pic is of a baby Tornado (16ft Mosquito)
It is quite common to toss the tiller extension overboard and stearing with the parallel pole between the rudders instead (Dang, what was the name of that thingie again!!). Check most Tornado downwind pictures from the last year, and you will se this is the 'rage'. The same goes for the foot placement, getting the weight as far back as possible..
Lee helm is not bad at all with the gennaker up..
I guess Stephen has some comments about this as well ?
The tillers that most top crews use are non-telescoping, so the long carbon extension would be poking at the crew on the wire if the helmsman was in the best position (sitting right at the rear beam). So, what they do is toss the tiller extension over the back and just let it skim along like that...helmsman steers by hand-holding the tiller connecter bar directly. The guy on the trap has his aft-most foot stuck under a foot strap located right over the rear corner of the hull...you can actually place the sole of your foot vertically on the transom with it...just looks like he's on the rudder.
Mike.
Quote
There are 2 things I find disturbing about that pic :
It appears that the tiller extension is dragging in the water, which means that it`s not in your hand ! It also appears that your left foot is ON the rudder, if you add these together I must assume that foot-steering is the latest technique to sailing the Tornado downwind ?
Or is this how Torrie sailors deal with the MASSIVE amounts of leehelm they must be getting, what with their centreboards being behind the front beam & all that ? (Don`t mind me, I`m just kidding.) Torrie is still the most beautiful boat ever built, nearly 40 years later. Attached pic is of a baby Tornado (16ft Mosquito)
I am not a big fan of trolling the tiller extension (excess drag) and in the moderate breeze will hold onto it.
As the breeze freshens, my crew Brent will move further aft and the extension does get in his way. Therefore there is no other option than dispose of it over the transome.
Brent's aft foot is placed on the transom, resting against the gungeon as you can see in this shot. His front foot is half way between the transom and rear beam alowing for him to trapeze nearly at right angles to the hull and as far back as possible like this.
When the breeze increases more and the Big T has a tendancy to nose dive, Brent will move his forward foot further aft until his heel is touching the corner of the transome. This will move his trapezing angle to around 45 degrees to the side of the boat and most of his body weight behind the rudders. I too will move further back with a foot rapped around a tramp foot strap and my tourso over and behind the rear beam.
Brent does not use any foot straps. The only time foot straps are used are by me when we are rounding the top mark and begining to set or when we are coming in hot for a drop and round at the bottom mark.
Brent will secure himself at the back by the use of a 'panic/sissy' line. Leaning back against this will secure his feet down on the transom. Holding the kite sheet with his aft hand will steady himself from going forward and holding the other (non sheeting) sheet will steady himself from falling backwards around the transom.
Even though he has secured hiself quite well, the skipper must steer a smooth line and the crew must anticipate which way and by how much the skipper will turn the boat.
Any agressive steering can and will send the crew flying forward or aft, with the latter being a very dodgy position for the crew to fall.
This techneque takes a bit to master, but when you do you will rip strips off the competition.
not that I'm one to point these things out, but in all your pics, you seem to have wrinkles in your main near the luff. Is this on purpose? Something that I don't know?
Downhaul broken?
Re: Best Tornado pics
[Re: MauganN20]
#25863 02/05/0412:05 PM02/05/0412:05 PM
Stephen, thanks for the great pictures and the explanations. This following statement leaves me with a question.
Quote
Brent will secure himself at the back by the use of a 'panic/sissy' line. Leaning back against this will secure his feet down on the transom. Holding the kite sheet with his aft hand will steady himself from going forward and holding the other (non sheeting) sheet will steady himself from falling backwards around the transom.
Am I to understand that there is a sissy line from the stern/crossbar area, attached to his trapeze harness, and that leaning to tension this line will provide additional pressure for the feet against the hull, thus providing extra foot traction?
GARY
Santa Monica Bay Mystere 6.0 "Whisk" <--- R.I.P.
Re: Best Tornado pics
[Re: hobiegary]
#25865 02/06/0402:23 AM02/06/0402:23 AM
Telescopic tillers are not used because they are too slow..... You have plenty on downwind in these breezes to worry about reducing the length of your extension. My thoughts also are keep it simple and keep it fast. Sometimes when it is short course racing or it is realy blowing I also will not lift the windward center board.
Maughan,
When running a spinnaker it is essentual to let of your downhaul and mast rotation to protect your mast.
Mike,
Yes it was very rough that regatta...... 25 to 30 knot winds and waves between 1.5 to 2 meters and the occasional one at 3 meters from bottom to top.
Upwind we would lift the windward hull as high as we could to clear the wave. Some of the big waves you could not lift the 10 foot beam high enough to clear the wave and both crew and skipper were washed off the boat. Also if you miss steered over a wave or encounted one of the big ones the complete boat would get airbourne. We were seeing at times, full leeward centerboard and as the boat fell, our feet were lifting clean off the boat. You just prayed that you landed back on the boat.
Downwind took some nerve to push hard and one slip up steering over the wave would see you swimming. I quiet often heared concerned comments over my sholder as the crew would call out oh Sh#t, biiig wave on approach followed by uh, uh, uh, ohh sh#t as we surfed down the face off it.
I have a cool pic of the boat surfing down a monster, crew trapezeing at the rudders, boat at a seriously down sloping angle burying the nose, kite eased and on the edge of loosing the boat sideways. Probably the scariest Tornado photo you would see. About 15 seconds later we lost it sideways. Brent lost contact with the boat and was actualy boady surfing down the waves to catch it. I climbed back on the boat after putting my arm through the main and stuffed the kite away. I was later able to bring the boat back upright by myself without the use of a righting rope. All I had to do was hold the dolphin striker and the wind and waves did the rest...... Never done that before.
Anyway the pic is about 2 meg and I do not think I can post it here...... I will later have it on my web site.
Gary,
You are correct, the line is attached at the transom and is sucked into the rear beam by a pully and bungie system when not in use.
Attached is another pic of one of the other Tornado surfing down a wave. These photos were not taken on the biggest day either.