Last week I conducted a short version of a 3 hour sail trim seminar. The short time allotted (30 minutes with a 15 minute Q&A) did not allow me to go into a lot of detail but I was able to provide the club members with a basic understanding of draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack. If you don’t understand those 4 elements, sail trim will never make any sense to you. The 45 minutes turned into an hour and one half so I guess they liked the presentation.
I wish the club had published the presentation – I was almost bumped by a mate presenting the subject of how to buy a boat in Mexico. In any event I had a good time. Hopefully, this will lead to presentations to two clubs in Phoenix but I have to see what happens.
Q&A’s are always interesting as I never know what questions I’m going to be asked. Sometimes zero questions are asked but I have a set of questions they should be asking and I start with that, which generally opens the flood gates.
Over on the Catalina site I noticed a question on weather helm and I always seem to get that question. Here’s how I answer it. First of all it is like asking “I’ve got a bite mark on my arm. Can you help me?”. A bite from what – a rattlesnake or a no see um? In other words, there is no quick answer to this problem. You would have to start from scratch and know each setting he has for the main and jib for the point of sail and wind condition he is sailing in. If you don’t know how he is set up you’re (Stu/Alan!!) starting in the middle of the situation. When you get these type of questions from your dock neighbors or sailing buddies always got back to questioning their basic settings as that is where the problem lies – one or two settings are off. I then go on to add that if your sail trim controls for the main and jib are set up properly for the point of sail and wind conditions you are sailing in you will experience little or no weather helm. The skipper then asked me how he was supposed to know these settings – I sold him a SAIL TRIM CHART. I then asked him if he had a complete understanding of draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack and if he knew how each sail trim control for the main and jib worked with those 4 elements. He said he wasn’t sure so I sold him THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE.
Would you be happy with my answer??
If you were sitting in one of my seminars what sail trim questions would you ask?
I wish the club had published the presentation – I was almost bumped by a mate presenting the subject of how to buy a boat in Mexico. In any event I had a good time. Hopefully, this will lead to presentations to two clubs in Phoenix but I have to see what happens.
Q&A’s are always interesting as I never know what questions I’m going to be asked. Sometimes zero questions are asked but I have a set of questions they should be asking and I start with that, which generally opens the flood gates.
Over on the Catalina site I noticed a question on weather helm and I always seem to get that question. Here’s how I answer it. First of all it is like asking “I’ve got a bite mark on my arm. Can you help me?”. A bite from what – a rattlesnake or a no see um? In other words, there is no quick answer to this problem. You would have to start from scratch and know each setting he has for the main and jib for the point of sail and wind condition he is sailing in. If you don’t know how he is set up you’re (Stu/Alan!!) starting in the middle of the situation. When you get these type of questions from your dock neighbors or sailing buddies always got back to questioning their basic settings as that is where the problem lies – one or two settings are off. I then go on to add that if your sail trim controls for the main and jib are set up properly for the point of sail and wind conditions you are sailing in you will experience little or no weather helm. The skipper then asked me how he was supposed to know these settings – I sold him a SAIL TRIM CHART. I then asked him if he had a complete understanding of draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack and if he knew how each sail trim control for the main and jib worked with those 4 elements. He said he wasn’t sure so I sold him THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE.
Would you be happy with my answer??
If you were sitting in one of my seminars what sail trim questions would you ask?
is for ?? 
