I saw many depart. We thought about it. We are leaving the boat in Stockton for a week. Whew. I have a large purple bruise on my ass in my recovering the spin or it migh be do to sleeping on the whisker pole after having one too many rums and no pad. Took the Amtrak back from Stockton to Jack London Square. 12 dollars. Easy and fast. Thought it smart to stretch it over two weeks with a nice weekend cruise home.
I never got to test the tweakers on my SC27 in winds like that but I have used them in the past to keep boats and chutes more connected/stable.
+1
This was my first time driving our SC27 in those conditions, so I'm pretty sure it can be chalked up to lack of experience! I've been doing a bunch of reading since then and I think I/we made a few mistakes:
Keeping the boat under the kite is so easy to read and can be so hard to do. Reducing the oscillation side to side of the kite helps a lot; the pole forward and tweakers and oversheet aren't so much to move the center of effort (NTTARWT) as to prevent the oscillation side to side. Main sheet in isn't necessarily as important as vang on TIGHT. The tight vang gives you predictable side force from the leech of the main. The corollary of course is that you need to have someone on the vang to release it if you start to round up or after you round down.This was my first time driving our SC27 in those conditions, so I'm pretty sure it can be chalked up to lack of experience! I've been doing a bunch of reading since then and I think I/we made a few mistakes:
- Not keeping the boat under the kite - easier said than done but I think I was starting to get the hang of it
- Sailing slightly by the lee with opposing wind waves when we could have gybed to match the direction of wind waves or sailed a hotter angle
- Main sheet wasn't trimmed in enough, which may have been causing the mast head to move to/from windward in the shifty gusts
- We weren't easing the pole forward / twinging on / moving kite center of effort to leeward when I was getting overwhelmed on the helm
- I'm not sure what height to set the pole for different wind speeds, but we probably should have lowered the pole
But we (crew AND boat) survived, so it all worked out
Ugly but here goes.
round down and main went over, boat still sailing!
The way I learned to steer to a kite ddw in breeze was to go out in medium breeze and sail without then pole and both guys twinged on. No worries about rounding up but you really get the feel for how to keep the bow under the kite. With the pole is then much easier.This was my first time driving our SC27 in those conditions, so I'm pretty sure it can be chalked up to lack of experience! I've been doing a bunch of reading since then and I think I/we made a few mistakes:
- Not keeping the boat under the kite - easier said than done but I think I was starting to get the hang of it
- Sailing slightly by the lee with opposing wind waves when we could have gybed to match the direction of wind waves or sailed a hotter angle
- Main sheet wasn't trimmed in enough, which may have been causing the mast head to move to/from windward in the shifty gusts
- We weren't easing the pole forward / twinging on / moving kite center of effort to leeward when I was getting overwhelmed on the helm
- I'm not sure what height to set the pole for different wind speeds, but we probably should have lowered the pole
But we (crew AND boat) survived, so it all worked out
