[Sailormon6]

Jeff,

Thank you for your kind apology, but you still miss the point.

Humpwalker didn’t ask for advice generally on sail trim. He asked specifically about the basic uses of the traveler by a novice. In my first post, I responded narrowly to Humpwalker’s request, and gave him suggestions on the most basic uses of the traveler.

He didn’t ask about sail trim generally, or about powering the sailplan up or down, and I didn’t discuss that subject. I was amazed that you could conclude that I don’t understand the subject, when I didn’t even discuss the subject. Now, you say my post didn’t reflect my understanding of the concept, but, again, that’s because I didn’t discuss it. I also didn’t talk about light-air sailing techniques, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about light air sailing.

Your first message in this thread was uncharacteristically brief and incomplete, so I added my two cents. Then you decided to go beyond the narrow question asked, and to talk about powering up and down from A to Z, and that’s fine. It was a good contribution. All I ask is that, if you feel moved to express your opinion that any of the rest of us don’t know what we’re talking about, do it for something we said, and not for something we didn’t say, and be fair. We all appreciate your contributions, but nobody wants to be unfairly targeted.

We still disagree on the accuracy of the knotmeter as a sail trimming tool. You say that your experience has enabled you to develop “a sense of the pattern of change,” so that you can see a meaningful pattern in the readings of the knotmeter and wind instrument as they are jumping around. That’s fine for you, but it isn’t much help to the novice, who hasn’t had enough experience to develop that sense, and who is still learning the fundamentals of sailing. Many of the people on this forum don’t have your experience, or wind instruments, and some don’t have knotmeters. For them, trying to use the knotmeter for subtle tweaking of the sails in light air would only serve to frustrate them. I stand by my advice. If you learn as much as you can about sail trim and about every aspect of sailing, and put that knowledge into use, your boat will sail faster and more efficiently. Knotmeters don’t make sailboats go fast. Knowledge makes them go fast.