More about tacking

Following yesterday's post, today I went out to do some tacks with Robert. We both did some solitary tacks and then practiced standard crewed tacks for a bit. Looking at our GPS track (SW wind), can you guess which ones were which?

To me, this track proves that : (a) a difference between a good and a not so good (but not a strickingly bad) tack is worth several boat lenghts and (b) there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Tacking revelation

After reading Thierry's blog again I had this revelation: while I focus a lot on spi manoeuvres, it is the tacking that accounts for most of the gains and losses. Funny, because everybody knows how to tack, right? Well, not quite.

While tacking is indeed the basic manoeuvre, it is a subtle one. You lose a lot of ground if you overshoot. You lose a lot of speed if you under-shoot. You slow down if you use too much rudder. And yet technically speaking, you could accelerate by tacking - this is why RRS 42.2(e) prohibits repeated tacks and you could actually be penalised for gaining speed even in a single well executed tack (RRS 42 interpretation BASIC 7).

If you look at your GPS track from an upwind leg, what is the shape? Is it nice and regular, with headings on consequtive tacks less than 80 degrees apart? Or is it a ragged with angles occasionally well over 100? I looked at mine from today's practice with Helen and Gianluigi and there is clearly room for improvement in this department.

For good measure, here is also a gybing video from an earlier practice with Paola and Philip.

I am hoping more wind tomorrow (and I will get the big spi).

36 days to go!

Hi, I have just registered Mic Mac (and myself) for the Translemanique en Solitaire regatta and I am starting this blog as a logbook of my preparations. I hope it will be an adventure! What is this regatta all about? It is a single-handed race on the Geneva lake - from Geneva to Lausanne and back. When? September 1st - in exactly 36 days.  What boat? I will do it on Mic Mac, a Surprise of the CERN Yachting Club. It is a bit of a challenge, because you normally sail this boat with in a crew of 4 people. There is no autopilot, but you can block the rudder with a piece of rope. Needless to say, you want to use all the sails (including the spi). So it is a bit different from your daily sailing experience. This is what makes it interesting!

The address of this blog is 66nm.blogspot.com, because when Andrea did it in 2010, he sailed exactly 66 nautical miles. This is his GPS track - it took him 16 hours! I hope this year will be at least as much wind... It took Thierry only 12 hours in 2011.

If you find this project interesting, send me an email! Thanks for reading, Michał