Bring Back the Reach

['Bacco]

Interesting article. I miss the old days of sailing modified gold cups and masthead symmetrical boats strung out on a tight reach. Now I tend to favor P2P races rather than the 3-day regatta of endless up and downs. Should reach legs make a comeback?

Bring Back the Reach

Dr. Derrick Fries explains the benefits of reaching legs in sailboat races versus the slower and more common windward/leeward downwind legs.

www.sailingworld.com

 

[Whinging Pom]

What I hate are these down wind finishes. No chance of snatching a place in the final beat, or being savvy with the line bias.

 

[nolatom]

For planing hulls, yeah I guess, it's exciting and fast. For displacement hulls, unexciting and not real fast. And no real tactics once your air's clear. You blow the start, you're toast. Whereas on a beat, if you can realize and pick the shifts, you're not toast. Ditto on the second beat.

 

[Marty Gingras]

No chance of snatching a place in the final beat, or being savvy with the line bias

Lines are biased upwind and down;-)

 

[dogwatch]

Bring Back the Reach

Dr. Derrick Fries explains the benefits of reaching legs in sailboat races versus the slower and more common windward/leeward downwind legs.

www.sailingworld.com

Good grief. W/Ls are primarily for boats that sail angles downwind i.e. asymmetrics. Collecting overtaking statistics for 420s is not enlightening.

 

[knh555]

What I hate are these down wind finishes. No chance of snatching a place in the final beat, or being savvy with the line bias.

That’s right. You need to snatch those places in the final downwind instead.

 

[knh555]

Interesting article. I miss the old days of sailing modified gold cups and masthead symmetrical boats strung out on a tight reach. Now I tend to favor P2P races rather than the 3-day regatta of endless up and downs. Should reach legs make a comeback?

Bring Back the Reach

Dr. Derrick Fries explains the benefits of reaching legs in sailboat races versus the slower and more common windward/leeward downwind legs.

www.sailingworld.com

I often sail on a shifty lake that sets Olympic courses. You always get a reach, just not necessarily where you expect it.

 

[knh555]

Good grief. W/Ls are primarily for boats that sail angles downwind i.e. asymmetrics. Collecting overtaking statistics for 420s is not enlightening.

Am I the only one who enjoys surfing by the lee in waves with a good breeze in a boat that actually can sail deep?

 

[Go Left]

There were two fun parts of the triangles.

One was just getting in the parade just sailing along hanging on to the shrouds trimming the kite and watching the owner do chin-ups on the tiller. (All the while hoping some big boat hadn't screwed up the beat and will now proceed to roll over all of you, gassing you in sequence.

The other was getting through the jibe at the wing mark cleanly in breeze without cleaning out your kite on the backstay in front of you, or death rolling back up into the starboard parade.

I do miss spinning the jibe mark with a symmetrical in front of the St. Fancy bar in 25 knots of Golden Gate breeze.

 

[Foredeck Shuffle]

For those that think one way or the other, why not just bring back more courses while keeping W/L? There really are other options. Two professional triangle drawers I used to sail with would often complain that we had taken the two least fun points of sail and made racing nothing but them.

I did not entirely agree. There are a lot more tactical option on a true upwind than any other point of sail. But, W/L is not the only option, as seen below from St. Croix Sailing Club.

 

[Schnick]

The other problem with reach legs in 2023 is the plethora of special reaching sails. Invariably the guy with $50k worth of A0 and furling J0 is going to force everyone else to get the same setup.

A keelboat set up for W/L generally needs two jibs and an A2 or S2 kite and good to go.

 

[Go Left]

Triangles are were fun sailing, but with the fun parts I noted above were from the days of symmetrical kites.

Now that we are mostly sailing assyms, we are constantly sailing on reaches (the fun part) and have eliminated the single point of jibing (as well as 90% of the fear and terror - the other fun part) so the leeward leg becomes much more shift and pressure oriented - almost matching the weather leg tactically.

Would I rather race a TP52 than an IOR 50? Yep. Although the IOR 50 was definitely "if you're not bleeding, you're not leading" which was part of the attraction, I guess.

 

[bloodshot]

I think the key is variation, at least for beercan series. If you have 15-20 races a series, throw in 3-4 triangles and maybe some downwind starts. A whole summer of W/L races is exhausting and can get boring.

 

[Sisu3360]

Now that we are mostly sailing assyms, we are constantly sailing on reaches (the fun part)

Except for J/70s and their wing-on-wing bullshit.

W/Ls allow for tactical and strategic freedom downwind, and even on a pole boat they have advantages. For one thing, it's easier for less experienced crew to set on a nice low angle. I do think that for casual jib and main racing reaches add some fun.

 

[pudge]

We primarily do Gold Cup, it keeps everyone satisfied but maybe not happy.

 

[knh555]

Screw W/L and triangles. Sail figure-eights on a tight course.

 

[Go Left]

Except for J/70s and their wing-on-wing bullshit.

No more bullshitty that ILCAs sailing radically by the lee on the runs.

 

[Sisu3360]

No more bullshitty that ILCAs sailing radically by the lee on the runs.

I think it's bullshitty because you're taking a planing hull and sailplan designed to reach and forcing it to run DDW by winging out the kite. We've got J/22s if you're into sailing deep downwind.

 

[Sisu3360]

Screw W/L and triangles. Sail figure-eights on a tight course.

If my insurance gets canceled next year because the underwriter quit the market I'm blaming you.

 

[P_Wop]

Interesting memories racing IOR Maxis in the 80s. The reach-to-reach gybe on the more-or-less Olympic course. Lots of planning and prep, then 30 guys on the Maxi (and a couple of gals) working hopefully in harmony to pull off the most evil evolution in sailing.

When it went wrong, it went royally wrong. But we survived, and the more of those we did, the better sailors we became. This of course culminated in the 12 metres and in the IACC. Gybing a 12 in Freo in 87 was no joke.