Which control is most important

[Ted]

I recently purchased a Catalina 22 Mk11 and am teaching myself how to sail. My boat has a cunningham, boom vang, outhaul and traveller. Assuming that I'm comfortable with the jib and mainsheet settings during a sail which of the above controls should I be experimenting with to increase performance the most. My limited reading says the traveller has the greatest impact on performance.Ted

 

[Peter Brennan]

On which point of sail?

Overall, I would say the vang since in any but a close hauled situation, it will have more influence on controlling the leech and thus the amount of twist in the sail. The traveler will have more influence within its span of travel, using the traveller to position the boom and the mainsheet to control the leech. But once the sheet and the traveller track are no longer perpendicualr to one another, the vang takes over. The outhaul and the cunningham control the draft -- flat and foward for heavy air, loose and more aft for light air. Don't forget the halyard, too.

 

[Bryan C.]

All of 'em

But I'll go with Peter on the vang. If I had to choose only one of the mentioned controls was an option I'd go with the vang. Even if you didn't have a traveler, you can use the vang to control the mainsail twist.

 

[Don Guillette]

Ted; I've thought about your question and your going about it in the wrong way. The problem is that all the controls for the main and jib must work together in order for you to obtain 100% efficiency. for example, the cunningham is one of the controls for draft position. The outhaul is on eo the controls for draft belly and draft position. the boom vang is one of the controls for twist and the traveler is one of the controls for angle of attack.As a person learning to sail, you have to know how they all work. For example, if your mainsail is not properly set for the wind conditions and point ofd sail you are on, you can mess with the traveler all day and it won't improve performance. The problem with most books is the material is all over the place. For example, the index will show the traveler on pages 5,26,51, 203, 350 and 379. Maybe I can help you. i have written a book called the "Sail trim Users guide" and all the informatiom about each sail trim control is in one place. In other words, everything you need to know about the outhaul is discussed in the outhaul paragraph. Sailboatowners.com sell thasi book along with a Chart, which gives you the correct sail trim setting for all your controls for every point of sail and wind condition.Another point is that learning to sail by yourself is a tough row to hoe. and you only get to a certain point and you will not progress any further. My advise is to find a good sailing school tha thas a separate course on sail trim. That type of school is hard to find as most schools just give an overview of everything and thenwant to get you into chartering , where the money is for them.

 

[Peter Brennan]

I take issue

Mr. Guillette is no doubt correct that all controls are equally important. And on a racing boat you have people running around tweaking this and that to every change in wind direction and velocity. The picture I always have in my mind is the deck apes on the America's Cup boats tweaking the coffee grinders and inch this way and that. But us arm-in-the-water sailors who loll on the leeward side with a good view of the telltales and traffic to leeward and trailing a hand in the water don't do that. We tweak things as little as possible and tweak the easiest ones first. So after we get the main telltales streaming right, the control most likely to be used first is the mainsheet. As the sheet is let out, the next one will be the vang. If there is no treveller, as there is none on our boat, the vang will come into play very early on. It's likely that the outhaul and the cunningham will almost never be used, especially if the lines are up at the mast and someone has to get off his duff to deal with them. Doesn't mean we don't know what to do. Just too lazy to do it. But I gotta tell you, that new Garhauer solid vang we installed this year makes one whopping difference, far more than anything else we might have spent money on. So the vang still gets my vote.On another point I totally agree with Mr. Guillette: go to a good sailing school. Money and time very well spent. Too often, self taught is badly taught.