My little Endeavor 24 can't seem to get closer than about 50deg to the wind, perhaps even 55deg. This particularly evident yesterday where the wind was coming almost directly out of the Port Hacking heads and I was having difficulty getting back in!

Is it a case of close hauling and flattening the sails as much as possible and that's about my limit? Are there any other adjustments to sheets, traveller, jib cars etc.? Generally, what sort of shape should I be making the sails to get closer?

Tide going out as well on way in???

Clean bum
Tide and water movement
Sails... Age, shape
Rigging tension and tune
Basic tuning
Many factors can contribute to this... Just experiment.
In light airs try to keep some shape in the sails... As the wind increases flatten accordingly.
I find when I race my NS 27 she points slightly lower than the other 27. Have mucked around a bit but put it down to furler type, sail shape and the fact he has a folding prop... That's what I keep telling myself anyway
Check your bum though... Even the smallest a mount can effect ponting.
In my opinion furlers will never point as high..
Good luck

Do not forget car position outhaul tension and the boom wang.
Also might be permanent eddies not just tide.

Amazing what a difference clean hull, tide, cars, halyards, outhaul settings make.
Airs have been fairly light lately. Been out dozens of times recently but only 2 times over 20kn. In light airs get the cars forward. I cleaned my hull well thursday but wind was 20 so i was flying in any direction but with max dirty hull agsinst tide and low wind ive given up going against and whack the motor on especially in some sections of harbour where tidal flow seems more.
Be nice to some pics of sails up. Would like to see how they look. Also note wind and tide. Little adjustments make big differences and theres alot on a rig to play with that racing last summer taught me alot. Things i never used so much like outhaul and vang get used all the time as well as car placement and halyard tension. Id say my sails are very oldand need replacing but the work pretty well. Getting new ones will be a joy when it happens. 50 degrees on the wind isnt cutting it! Somethings up! Is your engine tilted out of the water? Any bilge water? Even weight distribution?as a guess id say i can get 15/20degrees in my 22footer. Fairly heavy for its size as shes loaded up for weeks away at a time. If shes sluggish i check all the above and if all that fails its a combo of light airs dodgy sails, and tide so i whack on engine
Went 6 kms off the heads a few weeks.back. light northerly 10 knots. Getting east was fine however was climbing waves. Coming in was against tide with pretty large swell. Cpuld only get 2 knots maybe 3 on way in. The tide out seemed to be going south. Couldve been in the EAC.

Engine in the water def won't help but when you haul out look at fairing your keel somewhat.

My old Etchell's points about 5deg lower and is about 1/2knot slower with a dirty keel. I also know that when you get a stock plastic fantastic production boat, often a good keel fairing makes a massive difference.

Speed is height
Don't forget to go through both gears after a tack.
After tacking do not try to get too high too soon sail for speed first

RiffRaff said...
Speed is height
Don't forget to go through both gears after a tack.
After tacking do not try to get too high too soon sail for speed first

Yes to this. I was guilty of this a lot till I learnt how to do it properly. You really can't cheat here, every time I thought I'd sneak in a few degrees higher in the tack, I'd lose ground to the whole fleet . I remember in the last volvo in shore races Ian Walker describing it would take over 5 mins to regain their speed pointing ability after light air tacks, and that was doing it right.

Edit: I used to also try and point too high on the beat after tacking, to the point of luffing, boat stands up straight, speed dies, I'd bear off a few degrees and do it all again. This only resulted in me being slow, and pointing ability was ****. Speed first, point second, maintain equilibrium third.

Hello CanAussie14, there are a lot of people who will tell you how well there boats point to the winds but what they fail to mention is, they are talking about apparent wind and don't factor in leeway. Now boats built for racing can do amazing things but most cruising (built for comfort) don't point like a racer. I've checked mine (Adams 40) and it points about 48 deg across the ground when referenced to the true wind direction. I can get it to point higher by shorting the head sail and bring the sheet ropes inside the standing rigging but this is not how I normally sail her.

These guys on boat who quote 30 deg (to apparent wind) really come unstuck when they give these type of bull**** figures to a weather router (like Bob McDavvit) to plan a passage for them. I have made up a set of polars which are realistic and conservative for my boat and this is what I supply weather routers and have also manually entered them in to the Predict Wind Weather Routing and Departure Planning tools.

Shaggybaxter said..

RiffRaff said...
Speed is height
Don't forget to go through both gears after a tack.
After tacking do not try to get too high too soon sail for speed first

Yes to this. I was guilty of this a lot till I learnt how to do it properly. You really can't cheat here, every time I thought I'd sneak in a few degrees higher in the tack, I'd lose ground to the whole fleet . I remember in the last volvo in shore races Ian Walker describing it would take over 5 mins to regain their speed pointing ability after light air tacks, and that was doing it right.

Edit: I used to also try and point too high on the beat after tacking, to the point of luffing, boat stands up straight, speed dies, I'd bear off a few degrees and do it all again. This only resulted in me being slow, and pointing ability was ****. Speed first, point second, maintain equilibrium third.

yes and yes to all of it.

Add in an additional hull and my usual race scenario goes like this:
1.Give too much head start to the (normally slower) monos as your relatively new to racing and don't want to impolitely insert a prodder into their backstay arrangement
2. then get sucked into trying to point as high as everyone instead of dropping off a little and getting some boatspeed first
3. repeat until top mark.

The 'go through the gears' after tacking is a good way to put it.

It's an incredibly complex topic. One really good move could be to crew for someone in the Endeavour nationals at Dobroyd Sailing Club.

I don't think moving the outboard should be considered. it is an endeavour not a racing machine. I have sailed on an S80 with the outboard in a cockpit well and it did not seem to have too big effect on pointing, speed is affected marginally but what is the difference between an outboard and a sail drive.
clean the hull, play with sail and rig tension and remember to sail for speed over direction. After all, you are not racing.

What he meant sands was theres not much difference in underwater drag between an inboard without a folding prop compared to an outboard in the well

Ive got a cockpit well that has a tub that pushes down.it lines up with the bottom hull. Id never consider using it for its intended purpose as an engine well. Seems really impractical to me for many reasons.

Update:

With a clean and freshly painted bottom now and taking on board a few of the tips here I went out solo today and had a fantastic sail. Wind Song got about 10 degrees closer the wind than I've ever gotten her before, and I reckon (I forgot to bring my GPS watch that gives me an indication of speed) I got a couple more knots out of her than I have before, too.

I sailed from Port Hacking up to Botony Bay and back, and then tooled around in Bate Bay for a couple of hours trying out different points of sail and other techniques. I hove to, and put a reef in, and then sailed some more.

Today I felt like I knew what I was doing, and I'm getting to know my boat well enough that we worked together today. It sounds a bit weird I guess, but we were one today, and not for a second did I feel like we were doing anything other than sailing.

A great day! Thanks for all your tips.

CanAussie14 said..
Update:

With a clean and freshly painted bottom now and taking on board a few of the tips here I went out solo today and had a fantastic sail. Wind Song got about 10 degrees closer the wind than I've ever gotten her before, and I reckon (I forgot to bring my GPS watch that gives me an indication of speed) I got a couple more knots out of her than I have before, too.

I sailed from Port Hacking up to Botony Bay and back, and then tooled around in Bate Bay for a couple of hours trying out different points of sail and other techniques. I hove to, and put a reef in, and then sailed some more.

Today I felt like I knew what I was doing, and I'm getting to know my boat well enough that we worked together today. It sounds a bit weird I guess, but we were one today, and not for a second did I feel like we were doing anything other than sailing.

A great day! Thanks for all your tips.

HI CanAussie,
Congrats, glad to hear you had a great sail! A clean bum is worth the expense/hassle, and no, it doesn't sound weird at all, you made me want to run down the boat!
I love it when the boat and you feel settled, or "in the groove", it's a magical feeling to me.

In the never ending quest for pointing ability, a trap that used to catch me out a lot was heel angle. This is when my wind instruments were telling me I was pointing perfectly at say 45 true, but my compass and GPS track showed a 55 degrees track. I thought it was my little boat just didn't perform to windward, till someone looked at my boat one day and bluntly told me that design should exel going high to windward, and it was my trimming.
This issue for me proved to be leeway, I found I developed a habit of bearing off a little, only a few degrees, as it seemed to give me a big increase in speed at the cost of a few degrees. It felt faster, but one of the penalties was I was heeled a lot more. The increased heel angle was stopping the keel gripping the water and i was sliding sideways all the time. Result: my VMG was crap but I felt like I was tracking great.

I couldn't work out why the boats in front of me always seemed to lift to windward effortlessly, it was actually me sliding sideways the whole time. Now, when I am steering in the close hauled mode, I am always playing the traveller to de-power on the puffs and keep the heel angle small. All of a sudden, all the other boats stopped lifting to windward, amazing!