Top telltales not flying right, even with genny cars fully forward

[Don Guillette]

My wife gets a little bent out of shape when I keep making adjustments as well. She says "We're doing fine. Just leave it alone." But then, there's a reason I got the nickname fiddler. No I don't play a violin.

Bud: When we would have guests aboard the boat, my wife would start on me as soon as we left the driveway of our home. She'd tell me 50 times to not talk about "any sail trim crap" and "knock it off with the sail adjustments stuff and pay attention to the guests". I tried to explain that how am I supposed to sail the boat if I don't adjusts the sails -- The answer was "just do it but shut up about it". I got real good at paying attention with one eye and the other eye on the sails. The funny thing was that the gals were more interested in how the boat sailed than the guys were. Maybe it was a guy thing -- they didn't want to admit they didn't know. I don't know why it was but gals made better boat drivers -- they just seemed to have a feel for the way the boat handled.

 

[Jackdaw]

I got real good at paying attention with one eye and the other eye on the sails.

The one big thing that facilitates this is easy, centralized sail control adjustment. Have as many of the controls brought to one place; the place the trimmer sits.

Ideally the mainsail trimmer should be able to adjust mainsheet, traveler, and backstay from where they sit. And be able to ask the headset trimmer to adjust outhaul, cummingham and halyard.

The headsail trimmer should be able to adjust sheet and car positions without moving.

50% of good trim is being able to do it without running all over the boat! So I'm not a fan at all of:
Jib/main halyards at the mast
Outhauls on the boom end
Travelers over the compaionway
Mainsheeets on coachroom winches
Cunninghams at the mast
Backstay controls on the transom.
Jibcars on pin-tracks.