Shorthanded Racing Technique: Boat Set-up

Near the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, my friend Pete Dorsey and I started talking about doing a very informal series of shorthanded racing with people only in our households. We were really worried about whether it was safe or responsible to put it on, though, and ultimately we limited it to 12 boats and didn’t promote it at all.

It was a beautiful spring day for that first race. Once we got out there, there were so many other boats out that I quickly realized that our dozen boats weren’t going to be a problem with authorities. With the help of Bob Foulds from the Sloop Tavern, we had created a pursuit race time calculator, with timed starts. We sailed from Spring Beach to Blakely Rock, over to Duwamish Head, and back to Shilshole.

Thus began this year of shorthanded sailing. My sailing partner, Elishia Van Luven, and I already had significant shorthanded experience together on our Evelyn 32, Poke and Destroy. We sailed to Hawaii for Pac Cup with a crew of four, and have done many of the local doublehanded races, like Race to the Straits. But for many people, 2020 has been a first foray into shorthanded racing.

If a boat has been raced regularly, it’s not likely that it will need a major gear overhaul to improve the shorthanded experience, because racers are always looking for efficiency. Still, there are many approaches that can make shorthanded racing safer, more efficient, and more fun.

One piece of advice is to make all of your controls more accessible and easier to adjust. After downwind spinnaker sailing in breeze, I think the mainsail is the next hardest thing to handle for shorthanded crews. Mainsheets can get a bit unruly if it’s windy, so having a good fine-tune set-up to increase purchase can be helpful. It’s especially important on bigger boats that would normally have a dedicated mainsail trimmer— you’ve got to be able to easily trim your main while you drive or do something else. On some boats it’s a fine-tune system; on others, it might be winches.

On the Evelyn, we have a single block and tackle system that attaches to the traveler, but I led a fine-tune to both sides. A lot of the J/Boats in the area (J/105s and J/80s) utilize a separate

fine-tune block and tackle on the mainsheet.

This topic leads into reefing, but it’s tough to make generalizations, because it is such a case-by-case basis that varies with boats, conditions, and sailors. On my boat, with the blade jib, I don’t think we need to reef as soon as many others. We are actually more likely to sail the boat with jib alone, because our boat is a lee-helm disaster with a reef in. On a boat like a J/105 or many others that sail around here, tucking a reef in earlier gets you range on your furling headsail. Reefing is usually a lot easier gear change than swapping a headsail. Reefing before you absolutely need to is the best conventional wisdom. The old adage, “If you think you should be reefing, it’s probably too late,” comes to mind.

Another boat set-up upgrade to consider for shorthanding is adding a rigid vang, boomkicker, or at least a topping lift. On smaller boats that don’t have these systems, reefing can get sketchy or dangerous if you ease the main halyard down and the boom falls into the cockpit while flogging around. Plus, you often lean against the boom when reefing, so those systems improve safety in this way too.

One big area to improve is sail changes, which is a difficult maneuver with just two people. We have two pre-feeders for our headsail foil on our boat, and they both open (which makes use easier and more versatile). Those can be essential for shorthanding.

Our Evelyn 32 is very crew weight dependent. So, we either sail with our light #1 genoa in very light conditions or we sail with our #3 blade jib. By the time it’s blowing 8 knots, we’re just faster with the blade. We’ve learned this while cruising the boat and doing other shorthanded sailing, whether racing or deliveries. It's much easier to sail with a jib than with a genoa, if the boat can still sail well. With the bigger sail in too much breeze, the boat is heeled too much and going slow, and we can’t tack very well—we’re just dragging ourselves around the race course. If we’re on the borderline, powering or depowering the boat with other controls (backstay, outhaul, halyard tension, as well as sheets) is particularly important, because it’s so difficult to change sails when shorthanded.

All of our jibs were already in full-length sausage bags, but that’s another set-up tip to consider. We can drag the whole sail up to the bow, open the front zipper and put the tack on, put the halyard into the other groove, and then the sail can sit on deck ready to go without it flying all over the place. We do a racing-style inside change, where you hoist the new sail inside the old sail and then tack onto it. If you have a good stack on the luff and good prefeeders, you can hoist the sail right out of the bag and, when you’re ready, you can do a nice slow tack and drop the old genoa onto the deck and try to get it into the sausage bag. It’s a move we’ve done a good job of practicing in local shorthanded sailing. Elishia and I have gotten that process down well.

It’s also important to make sure your halyard and vang tails are long enough and led nicely so that someone standing in the back of the boat can reach them. It’s likely that a crewmember up forward won’t be able to adjust the halyard or control line where they are. On a little boat like mine, I'm strong enough to pull the jib pretty much all the way up from the back of the boat while standing with the tiller between my knees. That's helpful, and wouldn't be possible on larger boats.

This environment really raises up small boat racing. It's just so much easier to manage the loads and communicate with one another. I think one thing that will come out of this is that people who have been sailing bigger boats will buy smaller boats to get out sailing with their families. They don’t want to miss out on all the cool stuff that’s been going on on the water in the last few months.

I always put water bottles and some food in line bags around the boat. It’s really easy to get spaced out if you haven’t had enough to eat or drink during a long day on the water. Mistakes are more likely when you’re out of it. Set yourself up with something that can keep you going before you leave the dock. Sailing shorthanded, you need to be performing at a higher level than with a full crew. And with just two on the boat, that trip into the cabin to grab something is a lot more complicated, because

A dynamic shorthanded sailing duo: Elishia and Alex.

you’re already juggling a lot more duties and responsibilities.

Last big thing: put your lifejacket on. When you’re shorthanded, things can happen fast. If one person is up on the bow, and the person in the back is trying to drive and trim the jib in and the boat spins out—a person can be in the water in the blink of an eye. Not having a full crew to get the boat back to the person in the water is much more difficult. It’s always a good idea, but when shorthanded, someone who goes overboard might spend a lot more time in the water. Just wear your life jacket.

AlexSimanis is a lifelong Pacific Northwest sailor and is one of the owners of Ballard Sails and Yacht Services.