Chet - a little leach flutter is much more aggravating
Than it is detrimental. Don is right about the battens and the use of the boom vang, but if you are cupping the leach to an extreme to stop the flutter your leach is stretched and should be taken to a sail-maker to tighten up. Additionally, if you have to constantly play the traveler to stop from being overpowered the main, jib or both, your sails are not working correctly for the conditions. If you have tightened the vang and don't see enough of an improvement, Try this: Ease your mainsheet, take your traveller to windward, and ease the vang a little; and that will let the end of your boom rise to twist off the head of the main. That will lower your center of effort and let your boat come back up on its feet. If you are still overpowered, move your jib sheets aft to do the same with the jib. You can theoretically continue to do this until you are sailing on only a small part of the foot of the main and the jib. I wouldn't recommend doing that for any length of time however, but it might get you through a short storm front. You will note when you do this that your telltales no longer flow uniformly from top to bottom, so disregard the uppers and sail on those about 1/3rd of the way up. We have occasionally done this in T-Birds (a 3/4 fractional rig), and on at least one occasion, sailed with a full main and a 150% genoa in winds from 0 to almost 50, but that much is never recommended. In a Short course in one design no one wants to lose the time to tuck in a reef or make a headsail change (We also had clew trimmers on the jib instead of track so that we were sheeting the foot almost straight to the winch). Remember though that with the main sheet holding the boom in, that the boom has to be held down by the vang or the boom will lift too much and be totally ineffective. This technique is also used when sailing in waves so that some part of the sail is always driving even though you are constantly pitching. As the bow dives the apparent goes forward,the head luffs, and you are sailing on the lower sails. As your bow rises, the apparent wind goes aft and the upper sail drives. Some part of your sail is always driving. If you didn't do that in waves, your sails would alternate from stalled to luffing continuously, and only pass through the proper trim for an instant. Hope that helps Joe
