recomendation

Hey Warrior,

I think your board has lots more speed left in it

When you go downwind, it will feel as if the wind is dropping, but you are actually going much faster. Have a good look at your tracks, you'd be surprised...

Also if you're chasing speed, rig the sails with lots of belly and lots of downhaul. From the pics you could have an extra couple of cm of downhaul, as well as the same amount less outhaul.

Use the 7.4 in 20 knots windspeed, and you'll almost certainly crack a PB

thanx nebbian
i think my sail is trimmed ok, but picture, becouse of shoting corner, doesn't show it good:
my loft 7,4 got 488 (I use 490) and boom 218, I use 217

photos of my trimmed sail is here, so check again that and let me know





and downwind, when I turn down, and planing, I just feel that I will drop
on my back into water, no feeling that I am goin any faster

p.s. what is "belly"

Belly is the curve at the lower front of the sail, you don't want the sail to be outhailed to much making the sail to flat.

also rig your sail on the top out haul eyelet this will give your sail a bit more power, only switch to the lower one when you start getting overpowered.

Lotsa fun testing and tuning

Eyelets in sails is a easy one to remember.
High eyelt for low breeze,
Low eyelet for high breeze.

So lots of wind go low, not much wind go high.
Mineral

Hi warrior your current gear can for sure go quicker.
Downhaul looks ok maybe a touch more also having the boom up a touch higher may help too. When ya going for a run try to go with the gust and bear off take abit a back foot pressure off as you you do and even if you think you have run out o wind keep going that bit longer and hold the rig steady.

And like elmo said rig that bit bigger for downwind runs actually i go step more and say i prefer to be abit a over powerd going upwind for my downwind run the WA guys cant handle being over powered
good luck

Hey guys, I still can't quite come to grips with putting on more and more downhaul to get more speed. I'm usually sailing in underpowered conditions, which might be the difference, but here's my experience... say I'm using my 5.9 Maui TR1 sail, when I rig as per instructions, the sail is very flat, and I'll have zero outhaul, or even negative. Wind might be around 20 knots, with gusts up to 25 or even 30, and I feel like I'm barely moving. I let off a few of cm of downhaul, and the sail becomes very full lower down, and all of a sudden my speed increases a few knots. It seems for all my experiences, that the less downhaul I put on, the faster I go.

A while ago I was also sailing with a guy who has heaps more experience than me, with him on a new 7.0 NP race sail, which he downhauled with a crank, and made it incredibly floppy in the leach, and very flat. I was on a 6.2 Sailworks Synchro from about 1996, which I rigged with very little downhaul, which made it very full and round on the leading edge. The other guy was on a fanatic eagle with a nice looking fin (didn't catch the size), and I was on a fanatic bee with a 29 cm fin. Well, if you can guess what I'm going to say, I was going faster than him whenever we were on the same run. Speeds were less than 30 knots.

I seem to get the same increase in speed with less downhaul with a 2007 Tushingham X15 7.0 sail I just got, and also pretty much every other sail I have.

Well, am I doing something wrong, or overlooking something? I'll gladly take advice and try out anything if you think I'd go faster with some other tuning. I'm limited by locations and light winds here, but I'm keen to learn more if there's free advice going!

Thanks,
Craig

Craig,

Having less downhaul in lighter winds is an advantage, although you can go past a point and the sail will really start behaving badly.

Sailing square to the wind a tighter leach is ok but with speed sailing you are generally bearing away a far bit and this is where you need more down haul so the sail can still breathe.

Older sails generally have a tighter leach in comparison to newer sails and can have a better bottom end, but once the wind gets stronger the newer sails are a lot more stable.

Regarding the 5.9 going quicker with a bit less downhaul, possibly a bit underdone with sail size.

At the end of the day, you rig to what suits your sailing, the GPS is a great tool which takes all the subjectivity out of the testing and tuning

crystal clear
so, i will use lover eyelet as I use it so far
and with boom I just need to experiment.
also I will try to leave boom as he is, and try to mastbase little forward to
down the nose of the board....

thanx guys so far, i will let u know later

www.gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor/view/336

yeah nebbian righ
not even i joined gtc, also i am captain of the team and person who actually together with Ben add Croatioa into GTC - hell yeah :)
(Chech out under name WARRIOR)

I will keep you all informed, don't worry

ALL OF YOU are great mates, and I allready enjoying all good feelings to be
part of GTC's good fun place

@ VANDO
Tomorrow we have good solid forecast for 7.4
I will tomorrow try this:

1. Move the mastbase 1cm to front, to little move the nose down [}:)]
(I also crack my nose few dayz ago, you probably notice ducktape on the nose )
2. I just bought Gaastra riders seat harness and longer lines 26" and I will try with these two new thingz.
3. I will lower the boom from shoulders to 5cm lower

and Nebbian I am still and proud from QLD Australia in my profile, hehehe

Thanx Decrepit, I din't know that, I just think that this two sites are from Ben.
Never mind, Nice 4 me is to be from QLD, AU, even only in profile

Craig. It is easy to misinterpret the 'more downhaul' thing. And certainly possible to overdo it. Adding downhaul will only make you faster if you are fully powered up when you have 'added' it. If you are still some way from max power, adding downhaul will usually get you less power as you have found.
The advantage of adding downhaul is to lower the center of effort in your sail and enable you to hold more power and direct it better. But as stated, this only helps if you are at or close to the max you can hold.
It also helps when you let the outhaul out to get max depth in the sail, you need to add downhaul to stabilize it again (and control that extra drive). I often have the sail well and truly touching the boom when doing downwind speed runs and sometimes I have to add a tough of downhaul to control it, BUT, if I put too much more downhaul on it flattens out the lower sail and reduces drive. Its a balancing thing, just like every aspect of speed sailing.

The fastest runs I have done always felt uncomfortably overpowered on the beam reach on the run-in to the course. When I finally get to the ideal angle I am fully powered but (mostly) under control.

Nevertheless, his wish is my command

Thanks for the advice Sailquik, I probably need more experience and advice on which sail size to pick for the conditions. What usually happens is that if I'm overpowered on my 7.0, (with not much downhaul), then I'll try it with a bit more downhaul, but more often I think it's better to switch down to my 5.9 and use it with little downhaul.

I'm sure most of you guys have gone over discussions like this a thousand times over the years, so we definitely appreciate the advice! Thanks again!