The great golfer Bobby Jones said" There are any number of people who have devoted enough thought, time and effort to the game to be reasonably good IF they had only started out with an accurate conception of what to do". What he said applies to everything we do and any sport we start to play. It especially applies to learning how to sail a silly sailboat.
Over the years that I've been involved with sail trim I've seen this happen a million times. I get questions such as "I want to learn the traveler", "tell me all about the fairleads", "what setting is best for all wind conditions".
The problem is they are starting in the middle - they don't have an "accurate conception of what to do". Unless you have a complete understanding of what all the sail trim controls for the main and jib are adjusting sail trim will never make any sense.
As Geoff found out in the last thread, once he realized what conditions he was sailing in he knew what adjustments he had to make with draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack. All he had to do next was pull the right sail trim controls for each of those 4 element and set an adjustment that would allow 100% efficiency, which is outlined in his SAIL TRIM CHART. He knows what those controls are for the main and jib because I sent him a QUICK REFERENCE.
Americans are very impatient and they seem to want to jump in feet first and take off - grab the tennis racket or golf club and start hitting the ball. That is the wrong way to approach any sport. It takes so little time to become a good sailor. I will stack up the participant who spent 3 hours in my sail trim seminar and then invested 4 hours "on the water" with 75% of the sailors worldwide any day of the week and they will be in the top of that percentile.
Bottom line of this editorial is learn all there is to know about draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack and learn what controls are used to adjust each element and you'll really love sailing. It will by like hitting a 225 yard tee shot - every time!!
Over the years that I've been involved with sail trim I've seen this happen a million times. I get questions such as "I want to learn the traveler", "tell me all about the fairleads", "what setting is best for all wind conditions".
The problem is they are starting in the middle - they don't have an "accurate conception of what to do". Unless you have a complete understanding of what all the sail trim controls for the main and jib are adjusting sail trim will never make any sense.
As Geoff found out in the last thread, once he realized what conditions he was sailing in he knew what adjustments he had to make with draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack. All he had to do next was pull the right sail trim controls for each of those 4 element and set an adjustment that would allow 100% efficiency, which is outlined in his SAIL TRIM CHART. He knows what those controls are for the main and jib because I sent him a QUICK REFERENCE.
Americans are very impatient and they seem to want to jump in feet first and take off - grab the tennis racket or golf club and start hitting the ball. That is the wrong way to approach any sport. It takes so little time to become a good sailor. I will stack up the participant who spent 3 hours in my sail trim seminar and then invested 4 hours "on the water" with 75% of the sailors worldwide any day of the week and they will be in the top of that percentile.
Bottom line of this editorial is learn all there is to know about draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack and learn what controls are used to adjust each element and you'll really love sailing. It will by like hitting a 225 yard tee shot - every time!!
