I was talking with a work mate the other day and he asked me my opinion on positiong the traveller close-hauled. He hasn't had any sailing lessons and nor is he overly experienced in sailing, rather he has just gone out and learnt by trial and error (and not doing a bad job of it either).

Anyway, he figured out when close-hauled, he would bring the traveller upwind of centre to allow the boom to be brought up to centre. He then went sailing with someone with experience and this more experienced sailor went of his nut. My work mate now following his sailing buddies opinion has now noticed a loss of performance when sailing upwind.

My opinion is that theory only works so far before practice and experience takes over. In other words, what works works. It's a few years since I last owned a yatch and cannot remember what I use to do either way.

I cant see any danger in what he is doing, but what are you thoughts?

Ps. it is cruising only, no racing.

There is no short answer to this but you are right to some degree, what works works.

Every boat is different and different things come into play.....how old and baggy/stretched the mainsail is, rig tuning etc.

The big deal is wind strength.

The more wind the more you drop the traveller down its track. E.g if it is blowing dogs off chains, and the boat is on its ear with white water halfway up the stanchions, may be time to ease the traveller a bit

Light winds when you need power, the traveller comes up the track and above centre line. (and the main sheet eases)

too much weather helm and the traveller needs to be eased..

Its really horses for courses, some boats are sold without travellers, and some guys I have raced with are more than happy to "just leave it alone please!"

The S&S34 has a relatively small main. Traveller up in light airs gives the main a better angle of attack, as the wind builds ease the traveler down until you are spilling the wind out of the main to ease weather helm. It works.
I find a lot of people get a hard over about trimming if you don't do it their way. I have learnt there is no "right' way to do things on a yacht, except on things that might kill you like using a shackle on the bosun's chair instead of tying it, so let the skipper sail his/her boat and only offer advice when asked.

Fiesta said..

There will be lots of comments to come on this topic no doubt

Mostly it's about managing power via leech twist

Super Light air - more twist to promote flow = traveller to windward

Medium air ~ less twist more power = traveller central

Start dropping traveller when you have to much power = too much helm

In extreme conditions on trailer boats like Elliot's etc that don't have reef points we used to bring traveller back above center to twist off the power. You couldn't point high upwind but that wasn't much of an issue by then

Rule of thumb used to be ease main till top battern telltale flys. Traveller position helps with this

This is good advice, boom vang is important as well and it controls twist. But I disagree in light airs that I ease my sheets and outhaul to bag out the sails, also old mains stretch and the centre effort moves. Tell tales are key to tell you what's going on and don't be fooled by heeling it's not making the boat go faster.