Telltales - part 4

[Don Guillette]

Mates: It's check out time!! Assume you just left your dock and your sailing along closehauled in 10 knots of wind. Remember how this works - think of a wind tunnel with smoke blowing over the jib. Your telltales are going to react to your adjustment or steering and you have to read them correctly. Again, picture the wind tunnel.This is self evaluation time and I could post the answers with this but the idea is do you know what is happening to your sails or don't you. Anyone can kid themselves by guessing at the answers but that proves nothing. It reminds me of how my son and I are different and it involves golf. My son, who plays twice a week, is an excellent golfer - much, much better than me - but he had an irratating habit that was bugging me. He would fudge on his score. Just a few strokes here and there but it bugged me because I count every stroke - I want to know where I stand so I know where I need to improve. One day after a round about a couple of years ago, we were counting up our scores and what caught my attention was his score on the last 2 holes. He shaved 2 strokes and it didn't matter because he was only 2 stokes over par anyway and I was 1 million over. Anyway, I told him in a fatherly way, "you can kid yourself but please don't kid me and don't do that in front of your friends that you play with". As will happen with sons, that pissed him off but after he thought about it and to this day he tells me what he learned from that day of golf.So, don't kid yourself: (here are your choices - acceleration, full speed, pointing, pinching and footing)1) Both telltales are streaming back. What does that mean to you?2) The outside telltale is just lifting? What mode are you in and what mode are you about to go to?3) The outside telltale is streaming but the inside one is not quit streaming? What is this telling you from a pointing standpoint?4) The outside telltale is streaming but the inside one is dipping. What are you doing and what should you do to correct the situation?5) The inside telltale is lifting but the inside is streaming. What are you doing and what should you do to correct the situation? You don't have to post your answers - just keep them to yourselves but I would like to know how you think you think you did. In other words, did you understand the subject matter covered in the last 3 sessions? Answers tomorrow or the next day.

 

[Kevin]

Q.

Don: I have my answers written down for #1-4, but #5 has me a bit stumped. Is one of the telltales supposed to be the outside rather than the inside - you wrote it with what appears to be the inside telltale both lifting and streaming?

 

[Don Guillette]

OK, here we go but first question 5 was a brain poop - It should say the inside is streaming and the outside is lifting. Thank you Kevin for catching that mistake.#1 - Both streaming is your full speed setting. Remember, I also suggested that you push it a little more and get that windward telltale to flip about every 3 seconds. That will squeeze a little more speed out of your little beauty but normally all streaming is pretty good.#2 - We did not talk about this setting but it is your accelerating setting. When you see this configuration, it means you've just have a little more to go before you get to the full speed setting so watch what your doing and adjust slowly and precisely. At this point, the driver has to make a steering adjustment or the trimmer has to ease out the sheet a bit. #3 - Lets say your screaming along at full speed with both telltales streaming and the driver decides to try to point the boat higher. What you'll see is the inside telltale starting to lift. What that is telling you is baby you are about to push this sail too far and it is time to back off to the full speed setting.#4 - This setting where the the driver is pinching the boat. The inside is really jumping (beyond what you saw in #3)and you MUST sail lower or adjust the trim of the sailor the sail will stall and lose its drive. Remember a luffing sail is easy to see but a stalled sail is not.#5 - This one is the opposite of pinching. It is telling you that you are footing the boat and you have to either sail higher or adjust the sail. Obviously, this was not a scientific presentation as you'll find in most sailing books. They go into way more detail but the above is all you need to know to put you in the high intermediate sail trim telltale reading catagory. If you have been following along with these telltale sessions and understand the material, you can now read telltales better than 75% of the sailors worldwide. Most importantly, you know the WHY and the WHY is everything. If you don't believe me just ask a couple of your dock neighbors (in a nice way) what some of these setting mean and see the answers you get.What you should do next is set aside some practice time (about 15 minutes is all it will take) and practice reading these settings and making corrections. Any jib trimmer worth his salt has to know these setting or otherwise he's adjusting blindly.

 

[Jim]

Experiments with tells

Don, My first mate & I took Sail Trim parts 1-3 on the water with us this weekend and couldn't make it work for us. Boat is a Catalina 27, with a 135 Jib, lots of tell tails on the jib. Weather was about 7 knots of wind, sea about 2 to 3 feet, so the platform was pretty steady. Close hauled we could get both port & starboard tells streaming, and speed was about 4.1 knots, when we pinched (outside streaming and inside middle drooping) speed pushed up to about 5 knots. In both cases main was adjusted (no tells on it yet) so it was full and not backwinded by the jib. As we pinched the boats list went from 15 to closer to 25 degrees. If the main was released to level the boat out more, it luffed and we lost boat speed. We played with this for a couple hours trying to get the outside to jump, but whenever we did, the jib would start to luff. Sometimes we could even see the luff before the outside tell would break away from the window. Information: tell is placed on window about a foot back of the leading edge, luff crease appeared in front of the window. Twist appeared to be OK because the three tells on port and starboard acted the same at almost the same time. Suggestions?

 

[Don Guillette]

Jim of Dana Point: First a question and then a comment. Did you set the fairleads correctly on the jib? I'll assume you didn't and I'llexplain how to do it after the following comment.Next time out sailing, when the heel increases, do this in the following order. The first thing you want to do is drop the traveler. What you are doing is changing the angle of attack. In a nut shell, that means the more you crank up on the traveler the faster you go and the more you heel. So to decrease heel just do the opposite and drop the traveler. If the traveler adjustment doesn't steady up the boat, then try the mainsheet -ease it out. If that doesn't work, than release the boom vang. By releasing the boom vang and the mainsheet, you are inducing twist in the mainsail and thus spilling air (power) out the top of the sail. Here's how you set your fairleads: Let's assume your sailing close hauled. Start to bring the boat head to wind, as if you are going to tack, but don't go through the tack. What you are looking for is how the jib BREAKS. My good buddies on the Hunter41 yesterday had trouble with that term but once I explained it and they actually saw it happen they could see how simple it was to detect. Just before the sail luffs, you want to looking at the entire jib. What you are looking for is an even break from top to bottom, which rarely happens. What will happen is that foot will flutter, part of the bottom of the sail will flutter or the bottom telltals wil go limp. That means you have to move the fairlead AFT. How far aft? I don't know - you'll have to experiment.Now if the top of the leech flutters, or the top part of the sail breaks or the top telltales flutter, that means you have to move the fairlead FORWARD.You may have to do this a few times to find the proper position. That is why God put holes in the track, so you could move the car. If a mate is racing a boat, that simple proceedure is done on EVERY tack. The trimmer who is cutting the sheet watches for the break and tells the other trimmer which way to move the car and how many holes. So, the next time out, set your fairleads correctly and then try reading your telltales. You should be able to run them through the full spectrum of acceleration, full speed, pinch, point and foot. Just steer the boat higher and lower and watch how the telltales react. If that doesn't work, give me a shout and I'll make a "house call" to your boat!!

 

[Ted]

Experiments with tell tales

Jim, what is the condition of your sails? Do you have a roller furler or a foam luff? You may also be having trouble getting the results that Don is describing if your sails are blown out. A blown out sail will have maximum draft further aft than what it was originally designed for and the entry will tend to be flat. Even if you add halyard tension, you won't be able to move the draft forward to the correct position. The flat entry will make it very difficult to stay in the groove especially in lumpy seas. When you make steering adjustments, make sure you change course by only a couple of degrees at a time. A small change in direction can make the difference between luffing and stalling.

 

[Kevin]

Why did it heel more?

Jim wrote: “As we pinched the boats list went from 15 to closer to 25 degrees”I am not sure that I understand this – perhaps my ignorance.Normally, for me, when I am sailing upwind and I turn further upwind – my boat heels less, not more? Am I missing something? I think a pinch is going too close to the wind close hauled, unless I am out to lunch on the terms here. When sailing upwind or with apparent wind forward of the beam, I normally deal with gusts and heeling by turning further upwind, sheeting out, or a combination. For the boats that I sail, a NACRA catamaran and a J22, the boat heels less when I pinch.Jim, (or Don, or?) Why did the boat heel more as you turned up wind?

 

[Don Guillette]

Kevin: I wonder if we are conflicting terms. Say your on a close reach and you then decide to go to closehauled. You are now "heading up" or going more "upwind" or proceeding closer to the eye of the wind. Coversely, when you "fall off" or head more "downwind" your proceeding away from the eye of the wind. Now, with all things being equal and the sailor does not make any sail trim adjustments when he decides to go from a close reach to closehauled, the boat will heel over.If he continues to pinch up and goes beyond pinching, the boat will stop heeling because he'll be dead in the water.I'm almost embarressed to tell this story but we are all friends here. About 15 years ago, when I decided to get back into sailing after being out of it for about 100 years, I bought a MacGregor22 on Lake Havasu, AZ. Before the first sail, I asked a couple of sail trim questions of the broker but never listen to his answers. I did remember he said to head into the wind before I dropped the mainsail and jib. We had a great time sailing around the lake but then it came time to head back to the dock. At this time we are heading downwind in about 12 knots of wind toward the inlet that leads to the channel to London Bridge. This is definately a place I don't want to enter so I turn from downwind and start coming up towards closehauled. The first thing that happens is the boat takes off and heels over. The higher I go, the worse it gets. My wife is in a panic and asks me what is going on. I tell her I have no idea so I decide to fall off and think about it. The more time I spend thinking about it and trying to figure out what to do the closer I'm getting to the entrance to the channel. I decide to try heading up again - like things will probably be different this time - and obviously the the same thing happens again. The boat takes off and heels over - worse than before. I fall off again and finally say the hell with it and just drop the sails the best I can. I end up with sails all over the place. At that point, I knew I needed lessons and that day was the start of my odessey into sail trim. We spent the next few days motoring around the lake. I was not going to raise the sails until I figured out what was going on. I was almost sorry I had bought a sail boat!!

 

[Kevin]

Flattening Heel

Don - Probably not conflicting terms – more likely something that I never noticed before. My background is as a small boat sailor – not much of, say heading on a particular compass course or point of sail, and what little racing that I have done had no close reach legs.So – when a gust on any point of sail with apparent wind at or forward of the beam hits me - I turn upwind to flatten the boat out. Or, sheet out. If the boat heels over more as I start this turn – then I likely would have attributed this extra heel to the gust picking up strength, and not to more heel from the change of heading. Because eventually when I do pinch – the boat flattens out. For me all of this is cool – to move from seat of the pants sailing to higher level.BTW: this turning upwind to flatten out is – for a beach catamaran – the essence of the flown hull – and then turn down to get the hull up higher, turn back upwind to try and control it. How high can you go before you go for a swim? When I get some moderate winds to sail – I’ll give it a try. Gotta do it to understand it!