I had some interesting discussion with some of the over 165 sailors I spoke to at the Lake Havasu Pocket Cruisers Convention. If you're a trailer sailor this would be a great event for you to attend next year.
The most interesting discussions involved lift, centering the boom and a neutral rudder. A sailor has to be realistic as to how far past the center line he positions the boom. The general rule is to position the boom along the center line but you can sometime get away with going a little past center. On my C30 there was no significant increase in speed by going past center so I didn't bother but on a Newport30 I raced on by going past the center line I could squeeze a bit more speed out of her. You have to experiment. The general rules of sail trim are not set in stone. Fool around with your boat and see what happens.
On weather helm - everyone thinks weather helm is a bad thing. A little bit of a bad thing is sometimes a good thing. For example my SAIL TRIM CHART outlines a step by step procedure to set your jib and main for 100% efficiency. The last step in the procedure tells you to tune in about 3 to 5 degrees of rudder which will produce some weather helm Why would you want to do that? The answer is because of lift. Lift is generated by 3 things - the sails, the keel and the rudder. When you sail with a neutral rudder you are losing one element of lift. The 3 to 5 degrees of rudder I induced by merely adjusting the traveler help the boat go faster.
As I said, experiment with your boat. Try different things and see if they work for you. If they don't work go back to what you were originally doing. THE SAIL TRIM CHART give a bunch of sail trim setting for each point of sail and wind condition but you have to fine tune these adjustment to fit your boat.
The most interesting discussions involved lift, centering the boom and a neutral rudder. A sailor has to be realistic as to how far past the center line he positions the boom. The general rule is to position the boom along the center line but you can sometime get away with going a little past center. On my C30 there was no significant increase in speed by going past center so I didn't bother but on a Newport30 I raced on by going past the center line I could squeeze a bit more speed out of her. You have to experiment. The general rules of sail trim are not set in stone. Fool around with your boat and see what happens.
On weather helm - everyone thinks weather helm is a bad thing. A little bit of a bad thing is sometimes a good thing. For example my SAIL TRIM CHART outlines a step by step procedure to set your jib and main for 100% efficiency. The last step in the procedure tells you to tune in about 3 to 5 degrees of rudder which will produce some weather helm Why would you want to do that? The answer is because of lift. Lift is generated by 3 things - the sails, the keel and the rudder. When you sail with a neutral rudder you are losing one element of lift. The 3 to 5 degrees of rudder I induced by merely adjusting the traveler help the boat go faster.
As I said, experiment with your boat. Try different things and see if they work for you. If they don't work go back to what you were originally doing. THE SAIL TRIM CHART give a bunch of sail trim setting for each point of sail and wind condition but you have to fine tune these adjustment to fit your boat.
