I’ve been having trouble making it into the footstraps all year. Is part of it a question of attitude, rather than skill? Most likely. However, it has occurred to me that part of the problem is also that I’m still learning to set up the gear again, and in particular, I haven’t re-set my harness lines at all.
The draft in cambered sails is pretty stable, and, given that my 7.0 Oceanic race sail is my favorite, I was pretty sure that I’d gotten the lines set up properly for it, back in the day. So I’ve just been sailing with the lines set where they were, and they’ve been pretty close.
So the 7.0, my favorite sail of all time, is starting to show some wear, and what with one thing and another (see previous post), I bought a used 2010 Sailworks 7.1 NX race sail to replace it. I knew that I’d need to move the harness lines around to support the new sail, so I decided to spend a day on the water, figuring out harness lines again.
I was at The Hook, teaching some newbies (R_ and M_, I mean that in the nicest possible way 🙂 ) to beach start, and the wind was a little up and down, so I decided not to slog through the Wells Island Lull. This means that my runs were, of necessity, quite short. But, it was enough time for me to test out various harness positions.
In short, I don’t think I got them quite right.
I have an open question whether I want the lines to be set so the sail sheets out a little, or whether I want perfect balance. I believe that I had been leaning towards the former, as I’d rather be able to dump power when I need to, without unhooking (7 square meters is a lot of cloth, and I hate getting catapulted). I would like to be able to keep my hands a little lighter on the boom, however, and this makes me lean more towards balanced. I guess dumping power will be more about luffing upwind, rather than sheeting out.
The new sail has a lot of power. It’s hard to say after just one session, but I think I really like it. I need a bit more outhaul, as the sail was really loose at the clew, and the cambers were a bit tough to rotate. I also picked up a winch rigging tool, as the sail takes a *ton* of downhaul pressure. I would like to see the sail rigged on the World Cup 480cm mast, with a stubbie mast base. It would be cool to have a mast that just slides right in with no extension. Talk about easy rigging.
I assume as I get the rigging tuned up correctly, I will push the draft around a little, so I’m not too stressed about the actual placement of the harness lines. I have just completely forgotten how to set them, other than “look where your hands are, and then put the lines between them”.
I feel like once the sail is tuned and running properly, getting in the straps will be easier. A few times I’ve gotten close to the straps, only to feel the rig go out of balance. Part of that is me, stomping around the deck of the board too much. But part of it feels like the sail trim moving around as I move around, which is an actual setup problem.
Oh, and the mast base on the Rock is too far back — the 7.1 was causing the board to round up during waterstarts.
I am getting good enough again that I am noticing things that are “the gear”, as opposed to “the rust”. I call that Progress.