hi all,
now my 6th year sailing and 5th soloing my 1982 nacra 5.2

first 3 years on the 5.2 i managed to get blown over once a year at the especially changeable and gusty points of our mountain lake. the gusts that have blown me over have never been consistent enough to help me get the boat back up solo and i've always needed someone in a boat to unstick the mast from the water before my weight on the righting line has been enough to complete the righting

part of this may have been because even though i always un-cleated the main and traveller i never loosened off the downhaul.....this could have caused a shallow pocket at the top of the sail that held enough water to stop my 75kg getting the mast off the water.....

so with 1.5 years of no capsize i've been brave enough to start experimenting with the "wild thing" downwind. ie instead of going downwind with the traveller right out and both hulls in the water

when the wind is strong enough to fly a hull, only letting the traveller out a foot or so and while sitting on the hull leaning inboard, bearing off to lift the hull and build the apparent wind and then steering downwind to balance with the leeward hull buried deep and kicking spray

very fast at 10-15knots and the apparent wind thing really starts to work with the main and jib almost in upwind positions. this was really brought home when passing the downwind mark on 1 hull, splashing down coming around 90degrees for the next upwind only had to pull in both sails and traveller a little before getting back on 1 hull for the next upwind leg

fun stuff, only works when the wind is up, but does work solo on a 30year old cat with straight spreaders and no spinnaker

http://www.columbussailin…guide_by_R._McDonald.pdf

wonder how long it will be before an esp. big gust stuffs the bow and i get to see if loosening the downhaul does help in righting;o)



Edited by erice on Aug 12, 2012 - 05:58 AM.