Tips For Successful Light Air Sailing
By Steve Scheck #652, Mendota Yacht Club 1997

As much as we'd all like to sail the I-20 in a 15 MPH breeze and flat water, the reality is that during a fair portion of the season, at least one person on the boat will be spending some serious time on the low side. As we try to cram as many races into a couple days at regattas, chances are pretty good that at least one of the races will be a low side affair. These conditions are worth mastering.

Light-air racing has a very good potential to shake up the established pecking order of the fleet. The top competitors can find themselves in a hole getting passed by half the fleet, the bottom half of the fleet can find themselves passing the top boats, and those in the middle of the fleet can move either up or down the pecking order.

Keep the boat moving

Clear air is one of the first things I strive for. Stay away from the crowds, don't let boats camp on you, and have a lot of space to leeward so you can reach off. Sounds great in theory, but it can be difficult to achieve. Try starting at an end of the line and get away from people. As long as you're not going 150% the wrong way, this can payoff. Mr. WIND does not like running into a pack of boats and will try to go over or around his obstruction.

Once you get going, don't tack. A light-air tack is death. If you weren't moving too well to begin with, throwing the boat thru 1000 plus and shaking the sails around is not going to help matters. This is especially true for port-tackers. DUCK! It takes a long time to get the boat back up to speed, plus you'll end up getting rolled anyway.

Keep the sails eased way out and induce twist. I bring the jib cars in a little but ease way out to get a lot of twist.

Mr. AIR PARTICLE needs a lot of help to stay attached to the sail to prevent stalling. I bring my main traveler pretty far up and ease to match the twist in the jib. I have a telltale along the leech at every batten on my main so I can tell where the sail is stalling. Some people think it's overkill, but I can see most of them from the low side. When the wind fills in a little you can trim and travel down, but you need to be quick to re-adjust when the puff dies.

Ease the vang off. There should be no vang tension when you're sailing upwind. A tight yang will choke the leech and stall the sail. Downwind, put on enough yang so the main is not twisting off excessively.

Ease the outhaul power, but not so much as Mr. AIR PARTICLE has a attached to a baggy sail from bow to stem). You are balance; ease for power but Downwind you will need another inch or two.

Keep the boat heeled way up. You really need to reduce the wetted surface and get the windward rudder out the water. You might be heeled too much to keep the bilgeboard working at 100%, but I believe the drastic reduction in drag from having less boat in the water and no extra rudder dragging around offsets this.

Keep your weight forward, both of you. The skipper should be leaning forward of the traveler and the crew should be all the way forward in the cockpit. This has several good things going for it. You're getting the stem out of the water (less wetted surface), the rig is better positioned fore and aft (more power), and your crew will probably have an easier time giving you that little jib trim/ease without shaking the whole boat. As an added bonus, your crew is now trapped to leeward of the vang which should prevent them from trying to get to the high side when they think the boat is heeling too much. Of course if your crew is the one balancing the boat, this is an added challenge for them, but I never said being a crew is easy. Be sure to remind them to keep their weight forward, as they will probably have a tendency to move back to leeward laterally, but then forget to move forward. In all fairness, it is difficult to move aft and around the vang if the boat heels up suddenly, especially since they have gravity working against them as they try to move high with nothing to grab a hold of to help themselves. I also find that whichever person is to leeward thinks the boat is heeled more than the person in the middle or high side.

Keep the rig forward. In addition to getting your weight forward, the rig really needs to be to its maximum forward position. I use one mast rake setting from the drifters, to the nice breeze, to the hike by your toes, even when it's survival time. Others like to ease the rig back a little when there's wind, and even though I personally don't like that, you must have the rig forward in the light stuff.

Be sure that the rig is not overly tight. I like the rig to have some sag to increase power. When I first started sailing the boat, I was under the idea that I would rake the mast back a little (induce a little weather helm to help me point) and ease the outhaul (more power). One day a bunch of us Hoofers went out and did some boat speed testing. Dierk Polzin blew right by me to leeward by having his mast forward and decent outhaul tension. Well, Dierk was much faster than I was, but we switched boats and I proceeded to be able to walk allover him. I sailed higher and faster, and I was on cloud nine. So much for that idea.

On light-air days, we have to deal with another nemesis, chop. Saturday afternoons, nice sun, and not too hot are perfect weather for our diesel sucking cousins. Ease out and get some speed before you hit their wake. Keep the boat over heeled as you head into the waves. I have been able to pass a boat at the finish line because of motorboat waves. I went for the port end on starboard while he went for the starboard end on port. Out of nowhere, a huge set of waves came at him from his port side beam and threw his boat about five feet to leeward, and stopped him almost dead. I was able to coast around the pin and never had to deal with the waves.

Going downwind it is equally important to keep the boat heeled up. Have your crew sit where they can see the spinnaker and then get your butt down on the low side and keep it there. I find I can stay low and be comfortable by leaning forward in my straps. If the boat heels too much, bear off.

Don't be greedy

At a regatta, after the first lap of a W 4 1/2 (yes, I said a 4 1/2), I found myself with another competitor alone way in front of the rest of the fleet, who had fallen into a big hole. We could have battled each other for the lead, but that would risk sailing slow and letting the fleet catch up. Instead, we both sailed fast with clear air in the direction we wanted, encouraging each other on. I'll take a guaranteed second versus a possible first any day, especially if I could avoid the possibility of having the fleet do an end-around on me. Many years ago I was in the same situation racing T- Tens (lead bottoms, or as our Commodore calls them "heavier than water boats") on Lake Michigan. We were sailing from Chicago to Michigan City, IN. It was a long slow race, and near the end we started battling our main competitor for the gun, short tacking along the shore at 8:00 PM with nobody else in sight. We got ahead of him but missed the time limit, hence no race. Later we both said how stupid we both were and we just should have taken our first and second and given the rest of the fleet DNFs.

Be patient

Patience is a virtue in light-air. I was fortunate in that one of my co-skippers that I sailed with in my high school and college years was incredibly patient (and skillful) in light-air. I really learned how to apply these techniques in many a dawn watch during Chicago-Mac races. Major gains are waiting to be made. Since the boats are going so slow, a small boat speed difference produces a much bigger percentage boat speed difference. You can spend 5 minutes to gain a boat length in a 10 MPH breeze, but just 2 minutes in light-air. Plus, the legs will take longer, making it easier to build (or lose) a lead.

Mr. WIND will get to your side of the course in good time giving you the chance to make gains while the other side of the course sits. Don't go chasing wind, since by the time you get there, it'll be gone and be in the area you just left. Some people have a knack for predicting on which side of the course Mr. WIND will probably be more often than not, or how Mr. WIND will behave around a certain piece of shoreline. I find that experience is the greatest predictor of this phenomenon. When in doubt, make a decision and stick with it.

Find Mr. WIND. Forget all the stuff I just said about tweaking this and that, find the wind. A little more wind can mean a lot more boat speed. Stay in the wind longer and you'll do better. Wind angle all wrong? So what. If it's a little off, no big deal, the boat's moving faster and you're getting a lot more lift off the board and rudder. If it's off a lot, get the boat moving then tack or gybe. Staying in the wind is probably the most important factor in light-air sailing. The other very important factor that can never be overlooked is Mrs. LUCK. She has the ability to make you look incredibly smart or incredibly stupid at any given time.