PHRF RACING TIPS
The Art Of The Perfect Tack By Dave Ellis
E
ven very efficient craft like America’s Cup boats lose significant time and distance each time they turn the boat through the eye of the wind. If these thoroughbreds can take over 30 seconds to get back up to speed after a tack, imagine what our less efficient boats lose. What can we do to make these necessary turns less deleterious to our velocity made good upwind? First of all, if you are not forced to tack at a particular time, choose your tacking area. Look for a smoother spot in any wave pattern. In a perfect world, tack when you are going full speed in a sudden lull with a puff hitting when you get to the other tack. Yea, right. Yet, that is what match racers will often do when another boat tacks on their wind. They time their tack to correspond to when the blanketed air gets to
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February 2006
SOUTHWINDS
their sails, thereby tacking in less resisting wind while heading to wind. The rate of turn should be surprisingly slow. For many years I’ve been involved with Offshore Sailing School’s spring racing class on keelboats. The last few years Bill Gladstone of North U has been the head instructor. I have never heard Bill tell someone they tacked too slowly. “Make a slower turn,” might as well be on a recording from the coach boat. We have tons of weight and inertia under us as we sail along. A good tack will harness that tendency to remain in motion. Significant distance to windward can be gained by a slow turn. That’s ultimately the way we want to go, isn’t it? Let’s go through a tack in fairly smooth water with anywhere from 6 to 15 knots of wind. Choose the place to tack, whatever the reason for the maneuver. Alert the crew. Usually that means the jib sheet will be taken off the self-tailer or removed from the cleat. The other jib sheet was already wrapped around the winch an appropriate number of times for the wind, almost never more than three times. On a boat going as fast as you are likely to be going for the conditions, there is no reason to head off before a tack. That makes for a bigger turn. Simply turn the wheel slowly just a quarter turn, or gently push the tiller a little way. No, not that much—just enough to get the boat to start turning into the wind. As the jib or genny starts to “break” or form a backwind, let the sheet go. In lighter air, this usually means unwrapping the sheet from the winch to reduce friction. If you are on a boat with a huge overlapping Genoa jib, you may have to keep the sail on the old side long enough to backwind it around the mast to the new lee side. But be www.southwindsmagazine.com