You might have thought we were done with wrinkles but we're not. Once you've eliminated the wrinkles you want to look at your sails to determine if further adjustment is needed. The adjustment you will be making pertains to the shape of the sail and in particular to the draft depth and draft position. I hope everyone knows what draft depth and draft position is. The problem is that if a sailor does not completely understand draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack nothing about sail trim for the main and jib will ever make any sense. I'll show you what I mean. When we were talking about the horizontal and vertical wrinkles we were dealing with the halyards and halyards are used to adjust draft position. The draft position of the mainsail should be maintained at about 40% to 50%. As the wind pipes up, it tends to push the draft position to 55% and the controls you use to bring the DP back to 40% t0 50% are the boom vang, halyard (cunningham), mainsheet, mast bend and outhaul. Loosen those controls and the DP goes aft. Tighten them and the DP moves forward. On the jib , the sail trim control for draft position are the halyard and fairlead. The DP for the jib should be about 30% to 40%. If you are a beginner to intermediate, the above probably confused you. One problem is I have not described how you identify draft position in the first place. It is an imaginary line that runs from top to bottom and through the deepest part (draft depth)of the sail. There is a way around thisconfusion. You can go out and purchase any sail trim book and wade through this stuff. That is what I had to do when I decided to really learn how to trim my sails. There is an easier way. My book The Sail Trim Users Guide spells all this stuff out for you in simple English and it is available at the ships store on this site. Take a look at it to see if it would be helpful to you.
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