I have carried the #1 in 20-25 knots on more than one occasion. We do all the normal stuff and... We crank the rig down hard to 3000# on the uppers and lowers. Our main has a flattening reef and we put it in. The main doesn't fill much and is flat as a barn door. Perhaps the most important thing is to feather the boat into the wind and sail a scalloped course. We trim the #1 to about 8-12 inches from the spreader tip and in the puffs I luff about the foreward 1/3 of the sail. It's touchy luffing just enough to keep her on her feet while maintaining speed, but you get used to it. I try to keep her from going beyond 20 degrees of heel. Note that the water is quite flat here. I grew up on Lake Erie and Carlyle at it's worst is like a calm quiet day on Erie.
This is PHRF fleet racing and we may just manage these conditions better then the rest of the boats we've been with but the boat is almoast amazingly fast compared to our competition in conditions like this. Now if we just always managed tactics and strategy as well as sail trim!!
I should note that we end up in this situation because we do a lot of non-spinnaker racing on short courses. There is no time to change sails; you don't even have time to reef the main. There is a striking speed difference between the #3 and #1 off the wind at 20 - 25 knots true. I think if I owned a #2 that was less than 22 years old I'd use it a lot.
[This message has been edited by Mark (edited 02-07-2001).]
