As the nationals were cancelled last weekend, I found some competitive club racing to get involved with. See video below. One of the questions I was asked was how I set up the rig. Now of course there are the notes from Craig Richards and the outstanding video from Ken read, which I recommend you look at but will try to reduce their tuning tips to the bare essentials in this article.
First I believe it is general practice to have the mast step right at the back of its slot. This makes life really simple as you do not have to worry about mast rake measurements, only mast bend, rig tension (backstay forestay), foot depth, main and jib boom angle and main and jib leech tension. It all sounds very easy but I have found one to 2 mm adjustments can make the difference between fast and slow boat. When I started racing these boats I would rig next to John Tushingham and Craig Richards and see how they rigged there boats and copy them. They say copying is the best form of flattery
Put the rig in the boat, attach the jib tack, backstay and sheets and slacken off the jib luff. Apply enough backstay to get the mast to bend to match the luff curve of the mainsail. This will be up to 8mm max. Once you have seen the bend, apply jib luff tension for the conditions, maintaining the mast bend by applying more backstay tension as you increase the jib luff tension. Keep it slackish for calm weather and as tight as you can for heavy. For the foot depth measurement, I used to measure it, now I just make sure I can get a finger in the gap. As the wind increases I will flatten the jib. In a chop I will make the foots slightly deeper.
For the main and jib boom angles, set the jib end just on the outer edge of the flat deck. I have an inner and outer mark as suggested by Ken Read which I find as a useful reference point. For the main boom I follow Craigs Richard's tip and have the boom touch or just inside a hand vertically up from the side of the boat at the end of the main boom.
The tricky bit and possibly the hardest thing to get right is the leech tension of the jib and main. I start by setting the jib leech with the leech approx 2-3 cm from the leech line depending on the wind strength and chop. Then I set the main leach to match the jib leech and put the boat on the water. Always check leech tension by holding the boat so the mast is horizontal and facing away from the wind.
Once all is set I put the boat on the water, one to check the boat is balanced so it will sail without the use of the rudder, second to see the leeches match and three to see it looks similar to John Tuchingham or Craig Richards boat. If the boat heads up into wind I will ease the kicker and tighten the kicker if it bears away from the wind. I take some time checking the boat is set up correctly.
The other thing I use is the mixing function on the transmitter. I wrote a blog on this not long ago. When I sheet in the boat is in max VMG mode. When I move the sheet stick to the left I progressively tighten the sheets by up to 5 mm which enables me to escape from under any other boat. This is a really valuable feature when on the race course.
I hope all this makes sense and look forward to see you on the water with outstanding boat speed.
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