Distance Race from Start Line near Horn Point, Lake Ogleton, Yellow “A”, R “4”, Spa Creek Buoy, Finish near Horn Point:
Kiss Your Shrouds: When going upwind, your jib should be just smooching the shroud. Trim it all the way in until the lower third of the sail and the shroud are whispering sweet nothings to each other. If it isn’t touching, you’re basically leaving degrees of pointing on the table.
Downwind Sail Trim: Ease, Ease, Ease. We had lots of different points of sail on this race. The first leg was a close hauled beat, then it was a run to Yellow “A”, beam reach to R “4” a broad reach to the Spa Creek Buoy and then a close hauled beat back to the finish. Checking the sail trim from the front of the boat to the back was critical.
Trimming Downwind: Move your jib car all the way forward and then ease the sheet until it just starts to luff, then trim in slowly until it stops. We’re talking inches here. Then check your main trim, ease it out until there’s a bubble at the luff. The main might go all the way out to the stopper knot and lay against the shrouds. That’s fine. Check your vang, if you’re sailing by the lee on a run a decent amount of twist is ok, if you’re on a reach trim the vang to take most of the twist out.
Find Your Marks: On distance races it is important to find the marks out on the water. Getting bearings from mark to mark will help you if you have a compass. As will looking for something on land that you can see behind the mark that you probably can’t see on the water. Take a second to look at the chart to orient yourself. You don’t need to get the parallels out to know generally what your course is going to be, and you can see the structures on land behind your marks on the charts.
Trimmed Race Track:
https://race.sailpro.app/enter/XALDDU
All the Photos:
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