Need some pointers with light air Please.

[Charlie R]

My new to me 222 O'Day sails just great in medium and heavy winds. She will keep up and point better than many of the local 23's to 27 footers,,BUT during a recent Wed evening fun class race I got passed by a 19 ft Cape Dory Typhoon( Keel boat ). Well I was OK with that except as they went by they showed an exuberant amount of joy in doing so and said they hadn't passed a boat in the three year they owned her. BTW the little Typhoon is about the most beautiful boat to look at I've seen.
I can point my boat very well with speed in a good wind, but in 3-5 mph wind she seems dead in the water. There is probably something I can do to the rigging but am afraid to touch something for fear I may spoil the way she handles in the heavier winds. Just need some pointers.

[paulk]

Sometimes light air is flukey. Someone else can get a puff that completely misses you, twenty feet away. It can be very frustrating. Like your experience with the Cape Dory, we had a Beneteau 36.7 pass us once. It hasn't happened again since, but at the time there was nothing I could do but watch them ease by. What to do in any case? All the standard light-air stuff you read in the how-to books. Not too tight on the halyards, downhaul, outhaul or sheets. (This goes for the jib too.) Ease off any backstay tension so the mast isn't bent (you want almost baggy sails that will provide more power to drive through the inevitable powerboat slop.) DON'T PINCH! Keep the boat moving, even if you have to drive off a bit. Move your jib fairleads forward so that the jib luffs evenly from top to bottom. Try to steer as little as possible - it slows the boat. Use crew weight to heel the boat a little, so the weight of the sails helps keep them curved and full. Sometimes a little heel helps to reduce wetted surface, which can help you go faster too. (This depends on the hull shape. 420's are usually sailed flat, for example.) It may also help to move people forward, out of the cockpit. Doing this can lift the big, flat aft surfaces out of the water, further reducing wetted surface. Grouping your crew together with their weight as near as possible to the keel (usually right aft of the mast) will also help reduce hobbyhorsing in waves, which can slow you down. In a Wednesday night fun race it may be tough to get crew to go below, but it might also be faster to get their weight down. Once they're in place, make sure crew stay put. Moving around slows the boat. Doing these things can help when that catspaw hits to make sure you'll be the one grinning.

[sailingdog]

Another thing....in really light air, don't have people moving about the boat. The shifting of the center of gravity can rock the boat enough to throw them around and break up their ability generate lift, and prevent them from accelerating the boat.

[infonote]

This is a tuning guide for a sonar boat. But some tips apply to all boats.

http://www.doylesails.com/sonar-tuning.htm

[Charlie R]

From the responses it looks like it is the skipper more than the boat. I sure can understand that because it has been over 50 years since I've owned a sail boat. All the new rigging and the changes like everything else hasn't stayed the same. Surely these new plastic sailboats have improved. I remember sailing Lyman Cat Boats around the Bass island in Lake Erie as a kid in the early 50,s. You had to have two people to sail the one sheet boat ,,,,one to sail and one to bail. Fun days but going back to my roots is funner !! Thanks everyone and keep the suggestions coming I'm reading every letter and word. Isn't the Internet great??

[noscreenname]

When racing look for wind shifts and ripples on the water but also be aware that wind often travels higher up off the water. I've been in drifters where A boat with a taller rig was catching air that was missing most of my rig entirely.
In a true drifter 0-2 knots you'll want to remember that when a puff hits the forces exerted on the sail are far greater than the lateral resistance of the hull so leave the boom well out until you get some forward movement then start trimming in to the center line, Repeating as necessary.
Keep a slight twist in the leach and a medium amount of draft by easing the out haul and the luff of the main. Sheetleads forward on the jib and a slight ease in the halyard.
For conditions in the 5 knot range you will have better forward speed and the boat will be able to support the extra side force. Tighten the leach using the Main sheet then pull the traveler to windward, if you have one,until the boom is at centerline. I usually gauge the proper amount of twist by letting the top tell tale duck back behind the head of the sail once in awhile.Keep the draft in both sails fairly heavy and roughly 50 % aft.
Light air sailing can be very frustrating but when you start to learn what works for your boat it can be a lot of fun.

[mvk]

One more thought... In light air, staying in clear air becomes even more critical. The wind shadow of boats to windward carries a long long ways on those light air days. This is a big problem for the slower boats in a large PHRF fleet.

[Sailormon6]

In light air, try to stay on the weather side of the course, because that's where the wind is most likely to come from. When a puff comes along, you'll get it before the boats that are further to leeward. When you start to move, they'll still be sitting there waiting for it to get to them.

[sailingfool]

I hate to be the cynic, but if you were passed a Typhoon in light air, I would suspect that the other skipper was sculling with the rudder. I knew a guy who used to do that in an old Columbia fullkeel - the only time he passed anyone was in light air conditons - if you kept an eye on him, you could see a slow but steady back-and-forth on the tiller...
Light air would be the worst conditions for a lead stone like a Typhoon to race against your type of boat.

FWIW my advice for light air is avoid pinching the boat, sail it full, steer so the leeward telltales stall if you need to generate some momentum. keeping moving is far more important than pointing.

Good luck.

[Jeff_H]

A lot of good advice here. A couple more quick points.

You have not said what sails you are using but from the fact that you do well in moderate to heavy air and the Oday 222 is not an especially good moderate to heavy air boat, you are probably using a smallish jib. You might consider buying a #1 genoa if you really care about your performance in light conditions.

The Oday 22 is pretty round bottomed so you don't want to heel too far due to increased wetted surface but light winds often have a vertical component and so some heel will help.

A lot of 222's have wing keels. which are slow in light air if trimmed down in the bow or stern, i.e. pay close attention to fore and aft trim.

Jeff