Okay - another novice inquiry here! We are currently standing in 1st overall for our August series, which hit me as a huge surprise! With today being our last chance to get it right to take home at least one prize this season, I'm wondering if anyone can help me make a decision on our sail plan for tonight?

Wind speed is 16knots, but with gusts up to 32knots expected throughout the night. If it was any other race, I'd throw up the blade jib, and be done with it - but, I'm only 1 point ahead of our toughest competition, who has a very experienced crew (C&C37, with a pretty similar PHRF rating, so I need to be within 2 minutes of him over the finish to place above him) So... should I use my 150 genoa tonight? I only have 5 crew confirmed, so a bit light for weight on the rail, and we're a very novice crew, with most of our experience in lighter conditions - case and point, we smoked everyone last week with line honours and 1st place by over 5 min once corrected, but had maybe 5 knots of breeze for half the race.

Any help for heavier air would be appreciated!

If wind is what you say it will be and crew is light, stick with the blade and full main with shroud tension at 41 inners and outers on the Loos. Tight vang upwind (but don't forget to ease for the downwind or you will bend/break your boom). Use backstay to depower in big puffs. 41 is a little tight for 16 knots, but you will be happy if there are lots of puffs, and five crew is VERY light for that breeze. Good luck!

What Steve says... don't be afraid to have the inner telltales on the jib pointing upward when headed upwind. It will help keep your heel manageable. If the wind is up,. keep the main flat upwind (full on outhaul, full on cunningham, etc.). If there is chop consider a little twist on the main to help power through it (traveler up a little and ease sheet a little but keep vang on tight).

Great, thanks for the tips! From what I've read on here, twist in mail will help me power up, but we had a much more experienced member join us last week who used to sail a J29, and he said twist will spill air and depower - we won that race in VERY light air, with a very tight main sheet, and traveler not up all the way, as I try to avoid bringing the boom past midship.

We ended up in 3rd this race, and 2nd overall for August - not bad for year 1 of racing tho! We not only were light on crew, but had quite a few novice members, so things just didn't happen fast or well, and we ended up overshooting several marks.

The wind started to die, so I opted for the 140 - should have went with the blade jib, but, we managed to keep the boat pretty flat considering. Had backstay and outhaul on full, lots of vang, and cunningham on, but I didn't re-tension my shrouds. Is this something I should do for every race, and is there a rough guideline? I assume tighter shrouds = flatter main, so less power, vs. lighter shrouds allowing the luff to fill out more from more bend in the mast?

I retune my rig for every race, from a light air setting of 26 outers 21 inners in 0-4 knots up to 41/41 in 20+. The tune makes an enormous difference in performance. Make sure your mast butt is one inch back from the step in the cabin floor and your headstay is at class max (35'-10 1/2")-although some boats are going with tighter headstay settings these days.

Steve, Do you ever need to shorten your forestay to limit its sag in heavy air?
Or an another way to put it...do you have a quick velcro wrap-pin securing your forestay turnbuckle ?

Generally I don't adjust the headstay until we are into the top of the tuning range with flat water. I actually don't pin the headstay-it doesn't seem to have any tendency to unwind itself.

But velcro wrap a good idea...

If by heavy air, you probably don't need to change as the #3 luff curve is probably built to sag.