Strategery with Dave
vin-di-ca-tion
n.
1. The act of vindicating or condition of being vindicated.
2. The defense, such as evidence or argument, that serves to justify a claim or deed.

For years and years now I have been preaching to all about the merits of hiking harder and longer as one of the very few almost foolproof ways to get any boat upwind. Now [lo and behold] Sailing World has an article in their latest issue on that exact subject, AND it's not subjective, but actually uses math and different weight people and hiking scenarios to make the point: yes grasshopper, hiking harder DOES make you go faster upwind! My goal here isn't to steal Sailing World's thunder. As a matter of fact, this will be a short read because I would instead suggest that you go read the Sailing World article!!!!

It's simple physics: the sails and rig are generating lift and drag which wants to pull the boat mostly sideways when closehauled, but forward too. The keel and rudder aren't just acting as passive devices to limit the side slipping of the boat. Both are generating lift and drag TO WINDWARD, the opposite direction of the forces being generated by the sails. Remembering that lift/drag increases at the square of the fluid speed [wind and water in this case] it should be apparent that the first requirement for getting a boat to go well upwind is the speed of the airflow over the sails and the speed of the water over the foils. In other words, stop pinching so much, stop overtrimming the jib thinking that you are sailing higher to the wind and instead let the boat accelerate through the gears when coming out of tacks, going through bad waves or coming off of the starting line BEFORE trying to sail higher and/or sheet tighter.

The hiking part is way important because that and any ballast in the boat are the only forces that can counteract [to one degree or another] the sideways component being generated by the sails. Without this there rapidly come a point where the boat will simple "trip" over the keel and rudder. The greater the lever [righting arm] the more level the boat will sail and that makes the sails and underwater blades more perpindicular to the fluids flowing around them, which results in a higher lift:drag ratio being generated by all. This concept is hard to fathom for some but easy to visualize if you take it to the other extreme. If you let the boat "trip" and go over on it's ear as we all have from time to time, you will notice that the boat is going SIDEWAYS down the lake! This is because much of the airflow is going up and over the top of the rig and down and under the tip of the keel/rudder instead of flowing OVER the foils from front to back. Re-read the second sentence in this paragragh and it should be clear why this is NOT good for the program! Now think of somehwere in between sailing the boat upright and on it's ear, with the windows awash. Every few added degrees of heel reduces the lift:drag ratio and in plain english this means that lift is dropping and drag is rising. Every boat has an angle that they "want" to sail the best upwind and that angle is almost always flatter than the sailors think.

From my experince, keelboats and dingies are usually sailing at their best when they "feel" the worst, that is to say that there ISN'T any feel!!!!! The rudder isn't telling you much if anything and the boat isn't making lots of churning/sucking noises going through the water. This is usually a difficult point for most learning sailors to get past because of the lack of feedback, but unfortunately, it's an epiphany that all too many racing sailors never experience. I actually sailed with a couple on their J22 once to try and get them up to speed. The guy always had the rail in the water and then wondered why he got his clock cleaned upwind. I let him get the boat in "his" grove, which was 15 degrees of weatherhelm and 30+ degrees of heel, with the insuing sucking noises coming from the partially stalled keel and rudder!!! Then I told him to watch the old analog knotmeter [I still like the feedback of the needle] and at the same time let the boat come up into the wind slowly, and stop it just before it came upright. As he did this the needle climbed and climbed and actually went momentarily HIGHER even when the sails luffed a little!!! His repsonse at this ground breaking phenomenon? "I see it but I STILL don't believe it"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This gent went on to sail exactly as he had always done with the exact same results because he could not get past the no feel, no noise thingy.

Don't be this guy! Sail the boat flat and fast by hiking harder and longer. Go to the gym and start working out. It's not just a muscle thing, you must have the aerobic capacity to do this too. It's hard work but the results speak for themselves!!! Also and even more importantly: NEVER just "daysail". When you are on a boat sailing you can condition your body AND your mind much better than most think possible be simple staying at least in an active sailing mode. This doesn't mean that you can't relax, it just means that you should still be trying to do things right, like not ragging the sails and not sail with the rail in the water!

David E. Sample
Bullet Sails
501-569-9207 home/work
501-580-6885 cell