BRe windward performance

[johnguy]

I have a one year old Bre sail no 55 Mk 2 with bowsprit etc. I race it casually with Cardiff Bay Yacht Club and notice that although we are fast downwind we can never point as well on the upwind legs as most of the varied competition (cruisers of various ages and sizes), although we do always thrash the Old Gaffers.

I'm not a racer by pedigree and we do do quite well overall in the cruiser races but I would like to improve this one aspect of our performance.

We have fiddled with jib cars forward or aft, kicker on hard or soft or off, mizzen in hard or less hard but can't seem to nail the best set up for consistent good pointing upwind.

Any set up tips from people who race on best starting point for good pointing and upwind performance for a Bre with MK2 rig?

[jonno]

Would you mind broadening this discussion? I have the Gunter, boomed jib BR20. We don't point so we'll either.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

John

[Peter Cockerton]

John

In my experience with my BR20 (Bermudan shape main with sprit boom) some of my upwind performance is lost due to leeway. I think I'm sailing her hard, lots of heel and spray only to be out performed by flatter calmer boats. My jib is self-tacking so no jib cars to fiddle with but I do have tell-tales on my jib and semi battened main which I use and rely on, these tell me I have the jib shape right and whether the sails are in hard enough for maximum drive. With no portable ballast (crew) most of the times I sail I can only keep the boat flatter with spilling and filling the main as efficiently as i can.

Water ballast is not mentioned in your post, i guess on a BRe you normally fill the tanks.

Matt did post an article on Mast Rake some time ago for BR and BRe it might be worth checking yours 2-3 degrees aft I seem to remember is the suggestion, mostly affecting rudder helm but as you know rudder helm will make a big difference to boat speed.

Can't comment on the correct setting of the kicker as I don't have one and never used one however a quick trawl of the internet brought up some very in depth articles on the use of the kicker and sail performance.

Look forward to reading others experience on this topic.

Peter C

[Graham W]

I find telltales very useful, especially on the jib.  There's more on telltales (and sail trim) in the library http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/?page_id=282.

Matt's advice to avoid backwinding the sails in reasonable winds was to keep the jibsheet fairly relaxed, have the main sheeted in a bit more and the mizzen sheeted in harder still.

In light airs, my boat seems to point a bit higher if I improvise an informal mainsheet traveller.  Try grabbing a fistful of the mainsheet above the lower block in the cockpit and hoik it to windward.  Then let out enough mainsheet so that the boom is more or less amidships. If you want a more formal arrangement, there's this http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,428.msg2325.html#msg2325. A jib topping lift may also help with jib shape in light winds - see http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,1217.msg8610.html#msg8610.

And as Peter says, keep the boat as flat as you can in stronger winds, preferably by reefing the mainsail first (if in a race and with crew aboard) before putting in the water ballast as a last resort.

[johnguy]

Thanks Peter/Graham, very interesting. We will try sitting flatter and paying more attention to telltales. Kicker is a mystery to me, I can't figure it out. It definitely changes the sail shape but I'm never sure if for better or worse.

[johnguy]

Peter, I usually sail ballast in, as I found with it out we made a lot of leeway. Plus I'm sometimes alone and it is easier and safer that way. Also on short round the cans courses we don't skid round the corners so much. Anyway it is hopeless to think of getting the ballast out properly when the boat lives in the water, a nearly empty with consequent free surface is the best that I can achieve.

[Peter Cockerton]

John

This is one of the articles i found on the subject

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?117515-what-s-that-kicker-thing-for

Always willing to read anything to do with boats, not that i will remember the content and can't put any of this into practice on my boat.

Peter C

[johnguy]

Thanks Peter, very interesting. I've read up some books too, which more or less say the same. But I wondered what specific BRe comments there were, as I have found it difficult to measure what works best for me. I think the problem is really in my mind, I'm not a racer at heart, only come to it now in old age and looking for short cuts to performance when I should be looking more intently at the sails... on the Swallow Raid this year we were pointing as well as the other BRes so I guess that is it, just have to accept that and hope for more downwind legs to burn off the opposition.

[Robin]

This is a topic which has occupied my mind on and off this summer. After an overhaul and string replacement I had to experiment with shroud length. I found mast rake to be critical when considering upwind behaviour. I spent a day with unpleasant lee helm and struggling to better 45 degrees to wind. Shortening stays made a dramatic improvement, although my first attempt led to great performance on port tack and lousy starboard - 2cm difference in shroud length.
Otherwise it is the usual things - mainsail shape, jib luff tension, weight distribution fore and aft.

Robin

[Sea Simon]

This is a topic which has occupied my mind on and off this summer. After an overhaul and string replacement I had to experiment with shroud length. I found mast rake to be critical when considering upwind behaviour....shortening stays made a dramatic improvement, although my first attempt led to great performance on port tack and lousy starboard - 2cm difference in shroud length.

Robin

I have shortened my shroud cords P& S, by the same amount, as I found that my boats rigging had barely bedded in from new, ah
Having been sailed so little by original owner. There has been a lot of strech after a couple of windy coastal passges of a few hours. Jib halyard strech was borderline scary! Have binned that now for cruising dyneema instead.
Pointing much improved, weather helm quite nicely balanced now. No idea how i point relative to other BRe as yet.
I used the shroud eye terminations as reference points, and it did cross my mind that i really ought to check wire lengths against one another. Have not done so as yet.

Robin. Were your shroud wires of different lengths from factory?

[Robin]

No Simon - I'm afraid it was my inadequate adjustments made on a pontoon on a windy day.

I am undecided on the matter of dyneema vs polyester halyard. It is not possible to achieve rig tension in the manner of fixed mast boats. Without stays attached by hard connection to the chainplate there will always be some give, and I worry about aggressive tensioning of the jib ie by means of a 2:1 block. The mast jib strap is only riveted on.
There are clearly benefits in performance yachts, and greater weight savings aloft,  but I'm less convinced in our modest craft. That said I am forever tightening the cunningham in the main when the luff sags in strong winds. Perhaps dyneema would cure this ill.
Looks like a visit to the chandlery £££


Robin

[Ray S]

This is my third season with BRe 047 Whimbrel and my experience of 'racing' with it is at at three successive Falmouth Swallow Raids.

The first season we made good starts but always lost out on the windward legs - I put this down to inexperience. I always thought my mast was a bit raked forward but I was assured that this looked all right. In the second Falmouth Raid it was easy to see when all moored up on the pontoon that our mast rake was indeed forward of all the rest.   So at the end of last season and absolutely convinced I was sailing with lee helm I took mast rake measurements but wondered how I would be able to make accurate adjustments just using the shroud lashings.  So I replaced them with bottlescrews and adjusted the mast to have a couple of degrees rake aft and again took measurements. 

At this last Swallow Raid the boat was going as well to windward as any of the others and indeed the boat tacks faster as we are not having to overcome lee helm just to tack!

So going on Swallow Raids is a good way of confirming tuning before then going out to sail in handicap fleets and not really having a clue as to real performance.  Same goes for spinnaker handling too! Learned a lot on the raids! 

RayS
Bre 047 Whimbrel

PS  (The measurement system I used is one used in Wayfarers and many other classes I assume where you take a tape up to near the top of the mast with the main halyard and write down the figure when the tape is held to the middle of the gooseneck.  Then take the tape back to the top rear edge of the transom and log that measurement.  It is useful if the class agrees a standard distance to take the tape up from the gooseneck so that we can all compare measurements against each other.  Maybe Swallow Yachts have this measurement?

While the tape is up it is also easy to take it to the transom corners and shrouds anchor points to check the mast is vertical from side to side. )

[Peter Cockerton]

This was posted sometime ago when mast rake was topical

http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,1507.msg11024.html#msg11024

Peter C

[Sea Simon]

My Dyneema jib halyard is not so much about super-high rig tensions, as some sort of consistent tension, without the rig rattling about...
I guess my situation was made worse by the jib halyard, P & S shrouds, and forestay all having cord "make-offs" to tension them; the cord for all this appeared to be still stretching when I got the boat. The shrouds/stay appear to be some sort of Dyneema, so that is perhaps why they settled, but the jib halyard had to go...

I don't use any 2:1 set up, as my BRe has a jib halyard winch (as I think most do?).

[Peter Cockerton]

Out on Rutland Water with Andy Dingle on Thursday (12 mph winds with gust of 16 mph) no reefs and empty tanks. We discussed windward performance of my BR20 GRP and Andy suggested we take a compass bearing on our current angle of attack and then on the other tack and see what the difference was to determine our pointing performance. I was disappointed with the result of 100 degrees, 90 would have been more acceptable to me, however we kept the boat speed up on both tacks and didn't try to improve the tacking angle by luffing up to much.

We filled the tanks and repeated the test under roughly the same conditions, a marginal improvement was achieved with the boat being flatter, and the conversation moved on to the weight of the water in the tanks and boat weight/reduction in speed, does the boat weigh more when afloat with the tanks full.

Be interesting to hear others results using this simple technique.

Peter C and Andy D