Jedmo:
It'll take me a while to remember all that great info Scott. I am going to print it and read it over and over until it becomes a second nature to me.
Jedmo
SteveS doesn't kayak anymore:
I love the "don't launch in surf over two feet"....
Marin has a couple of decent ocean launches.: Muirbeach north side Bolinas- launch into the lagoon and sail out the channel ( see above)
LapuLapu:
Very useful info Scott! Thanks for taking the time to share it with us. Although I've had my AI for sometime now, I still consider myself a newbie sailor. One thing I would like to improve on is sailing against the wind. How can I sail to be more efficient when going from pt. A to B. A lot of times I think I wait to long to go the other direction when tacking.
Rey
Great Bass 2:
--- Quote from: lapulapu on July 02, 2012, 06:46:16 AM ---One thing I would like to improve on is sailing against the wind. How can I sail to be more efficient when going from pt. A to B. A lot of times I think I wait to long to go the other direction when tacking.
Rey
--- End quote ---
Rey -
That is a more complex issue but usually going from A to B is not directly into the wind so you should sail on the tack that points closer to your destination for the longest time, this is referred to as the preferred tack. This is sailing the shortest course. If you get a small header but are still on the tack closest to the destination, you probably will wait for a bigger header before considering a tack.
Sail in clean air and sail towards and in the most wind pressure. Sailing in more pressure means you point higher upwind and go faster. Before you start and while sailing, look upwind and see where there is the most wind. If you draw a line from A to B and one side has clean air and the other side has dirty air then you want to lay out your your tacks to maximize the time you are in clean air, this is referred to as the favored side of the course. In this case depending on the wind direction, you may not be sailing the shortest course but you will be getting to your destination faster. Think about sailing to the end of ARW under different wind conditions and how it would change your tacking strategy.
Keep turns to a minimum. Make sure that each turn pays for itself in the sense that you will gain boat speed or shorten the distance to the destination. In racing, a tack will cost at least one boat length. The goal is to get to the destination in the shortest distance and the minimum number of turns but at the same time maximizing boat speed.