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sailing tips to print and keep with the boat

To: swiftsolo@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: sailing tips to print and keep with the boat
From: BDally6107@xxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:49:48 EDT
 
For all of you who are launching and sailing your new Swifts for the  first 
couple of times:  Let me start  by telling you that sail management on the 
Swift is different from many other  sailboats.  If you are having  problems, 
please give me a call or send me an email.  Taking advice from non skiff 
sailors is 
 often counterproductive.  Sailors of  skiffs without cap shrouds are also 
likely to give you information that may be  less than helpful. 
The hardest thing for me to overcome was the mantra âset  the boat up for the 
lullsâ.  This is  very good advice for double handers but really poor advice 
for the Swift.  You will find that it is much easier to  power the boat up 
once a race starts than it is to de-power.  If you are underpowered, you will 
be  
bending your knees from time to time and can easily pull on more vang and cap 
 shroud tension.  Additionally, you  can step on the board and push it all 
the way down during a tack and you can  find time to move the jib pins in on a 
tack or the downwind leg without giving  up much.  On the other hand, when  you 
are overpowered, it is difficult to bend in and adjust things without giving  
up a lot of speed.  The centerboard  (daggerboard) is a lot harder to pull up 
than to push down and tacking when  overpowered requires getting right out on 
the new trapezeâleaving little time to  do anything else without giving away 
a lot of distance and risking getting  caught in irons.   
A couple of concepts that will help: 
The  Cunningham on the Swift induces mast bend without adding much leech  
tension.  The outcome is a flat  mainsail with a soft leechâvery good for 
heavy 
air.  Increasing Cunningham will increasingly  flatten and soften the leech. 
The vang on  the Swift will tighten the leech while only marginally 
flattening the sailâvery  good for light-medium air when you are looking for 
power.  If 
your main is twisting off too much  and providing too little power, pull on 
some more vang 
The lower  shrouds adjust mainsail fullness as well.  Loosening the lower 
shrouds will flatten  the main and make it easier to sail in gusty conditions.  
Tightening the lowers will increase  power for those conditions when you can't 
quite stay out on the wire.   
The cap  shrouds can cause much confusion.  They work essentially the same 
way as the lowers.  The problem stems from the false  conclusions you reach 
while adjusting them without the sail loaded (on your  cradle for instance).  
With 
no load  on the main, it is easy to conclude that tighter caps lead to a 
flatter  sail.  Wrong.  The reality is that only the windward  cap shroud is 
tight 
when actually sailing.  A tighter windward cap will pull the must tip to 
weather making the main  fuller-not flatter.  Tighten the  caps when you need 
more 
power. 
The primary  shrouds are used to keep the forestay tension under control and 
to induce  compression bending on the mast.  Compression bending on the Swift 
Solo is much less important than on  skiffs with lower spreaders so 
essentially we are talking about forestay  sag.  In conditions when you are  
looking for 
more power, reduce primary tension a bit.  For less power, increase primary  
tension.  This is fairly important  for racing but probably the least 
significant of the adjustments on a  Swift 
The jib  halyard/downhaul is used to move the jib up and down on the forestay 
 (tightening and loosening the leech) and to tension the luff.  Tensioning 
either control will tighten  the luff.  If you pull on more  halyard, you will 
tension both the luff and the leech.  If you pull on more downhaul, you will  
tension the luff while loosening the leechâgood when the wind  increases. 
The jib track  adjustment controls the width of the slot between the main and 
the jib.  In wind conditions between 5 and 14  knots the pin should be in the 
second hole (from the center).  If you have made the other de-powering  
adjustments and are still overpowered, move the pins out to the third holes.  
In conclusion if the wind is above 8 knots, leave for the race course  with: 
    1.  a little more Cunningham than instinct calls  for 
    2.  looser caps than you might need 
    3.  looser lowers than you might need 
    4.  more jib downhaul than time going to weather may  show is appropriate
If the wind is above 12 Knots, leave for the race course with: 
    1.  The jib pins in the third hole 
    2.  a bit more primary shroud tension (maybe  25) 
    3.  the centerboard pulled up 4 inches 
    4.  a lot of Cunningham
Sail to weather before the race starts and add power in this order until  you 
feel fast: 
    1.  move the jib pins in to the second  hole 
    2.  push the board down all the way 
    3.  let the Cunningham off a bit 
    4.  pull the caps on a bit 
    5.  adjust the jib halyard/downhaul so that the  telltales break top and 
bottom at the same time 
It may seem like I've forgotten the vang.  With the Swift's mainsail, you 
will  likely find that, once the vang is set, the Cunningham loosens and 
tightens 
the  leech automatically as you adjust it for more or less breeze (if you 
think about  it, pulling on more Cunningham bends the tip of the mast aft,  
flattening the sail and loosening the  leech and visa versa). 
If you have any questions, please ask them since this is a bit more  
complicated than many other boats.  Do remember that without these adjustments 
and the 
auto-sheeting system  on the main/jib, the Swift would be very difficult to 
sail.  If you have the boat set up with too  little power, you will be bending 
your knees more than necessary and going a bit  slower than you should be.  If 
you  have it set up with too much power, you will be working very hard and 
going  really slow.  When in doubt, error  on the side of too little power. 
Best regards, 
Bram 
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