Tacking Goal

The goal of tacking is to change course onto the new tack with the minimum loss of speed possible. In general, that's accomplished by the helmsman making a smooth turn, and the trimmers sheeting in as fast as possible. However, since the boat will loose speed, it is important to 'foot' for a little after, before coming up completely.

A note on hiking: Maximum hiking is very important while tacking. If possible, the boat should even lean to leeward after the boat goes head-through-wind. As the sails fill on the new tack, and the boat begins to right, the maximum amount of (wind) power is converted to going forward. On the other hand, if the boat heels a lot to leeward right away, we'll go sideways initially, with a stalled keel. Basically, we'll be drifting downwind instead of going upwind, AND we are loosing time to gain speed. This is BAD! So we hike our butts off as we come out of a tack! On super-aggressive boats, that includes throwing your weight against the lifelines to get a really nice leeward heel going.

Tacking Sequence

Note: the top teams manage to drop the jib inside the lifelines on every tack. That's a goal for us to strive towards. Success will very much depend on the coordination of helm and trim, since too abrupt a tack is impossible for trim to keep up with (and it bleeds off to much speed, anyhow). 

Starting Goal

Off the line with the gun at/above full speed in clean air! Yep, that's it. In order to be at or above full speed, we need some room to leeward, into which we can accelerate by footing off a bit. Since we sail PHRF, we need to look for smaller/slower boats to keep to either side, so that we can power away from them in clean air. The opposite, starting between a couple of Farr 40's, is pretty much death.

Starting Scenarios

There are a number of starts that we can choose from. Some of them are:

The top 3 of these are the ones that we'll most often execute, and need to get good at. Try to visualize each of these scenarios, and imagine where we might have to gybe, tack, and slow down / speed up. If we all can think along the same lines, there will be few surprises and we'll execute smoother. 

Port Tack Approach

In this starting maneuver, we initially wait to the left of the line. Then, with around 3 min to spare, we parallel the line on port, looking for an opening into which to tack. This works esp. good if most of the fleet is trying to start right at the boat, and is bunching up there. We basically tack underneath a group of boats, and can then start with space to leeward, into which we accelerate. If we don't find a spot on starboard, we most likely resort to starting on port behind the first row (not so desirable, but better than starting in the 2nd row behind everybody else and being gassed.)

Starboard Scalloping Approach

We parallel the line initially, then approach it scalloping up and down into a space. By doing the scallops, we can build space to leeward. Basically, we have rights on the boat to windward, so keep on taking them up, then go down, either to build/keep speed, or to defend the leeward space against some intruder.

Half-speed Approach

Here, we sail away from the line with about 3 min to go. At about 2 min, we turn around, and slowly approach the line on starboard. We can modulate our speed to match the time remaining, looking for a spot to sail into. Clearly, anybody coming from the right on stbd. we have rights on. This should work pretty good for mid-line starts. Not so good if there's a foul (opposing) current, since getting back to the line might be an issue.

Starting Maneuvers

During the start, it's often important to modulate speed quickly and precisely, as well as turn effectively, sometimes without the use of the rudder. The following maneuvers need to be executed:

Full Speed

We want to accelerate as fast as possible towards and over the line. The key is to NOT sheet in too hard and stall, since in that case we just end up going sideways. Also, pinching is just death here. So both trim and helm need to really concentrate.

Slow Down

Here we want to slow down, so that we don't go over the line early. The general direction we are going is right, so the main thing is to stop the power in the sails. If we really really need to slow down, we can try backing the main.

Slow Down - bow up

In this case, we either want to luff a windward boat in order to protect our leeward space, and keep him from sitting on us during the start, or we just want to move slowly upwind.

Slow Down - bow down

Wanting to bear off to get ready to speed up, or defending a space to leeward that someone wants to get into. By easing the main and trimming in the jib, the wind will blow the bow down.