Spi sailing 101
Pic Jorge Cousillas www.elojonautico.com – same F18 At 2nd Argentinean Champ – 2009
When sailing in 20knots and waves never let go the mainsheet going downwind with spi…
This is ABC for rookies and a speech I repeated to all my clients a hundred times.
Today racing in tough conditions, some Infusions were pitch poling hard, the other local cats were submerging and abondoned, I was sailing with one of my clients, Javier La Fuente, owner of a RC, in my boat.
The RC F18 I has lots of margin in these condiditions due to huge volume in front.
We weren´t coordinated on the 1st race but as many others were down, we ended 3rd and we did last 100mts without spi.
On the 2nd we coordinated a lot better and flew upwind after 2nd tack, then we hoist the Spi, easy as it was hard, but short heavy (Literally almost mud consistent water!) waves were all around, we smashed hard down on one , I shouted to let go the Spi, he reacted late or didn´t release full and to prevent pitch pole and as last attemp, I let go the main sheet instead of the traveller……. goodbye mast!
So for the beginners reading, never let go the main sheet sailing downwind with spi in 20knots… Also your sails may suffer some damage beyond breaking the mast,
f…! I’m p… off , that Landy Jib was like new! the main suffered but its ‘ok’ considering, and the spi was left intact.
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I need vacations after four good years dedicated to cats! so maybe the blog maybe will stay on stand by mode from this weekend onwards, or with less posts at least.
Thanks to all of you Catsailingnews readers, I started the blog to gather favorites on August 08 with 0 visits but it was clear to me that we needed a full cat sailing site with pics, stories and videos on the front page beyond the undisputable beachcat Forum, Rick White´s bible: Catsailor.com
Right now we have 700-1000 a day! Not bad for 1 1/2 year of existence.
Cheers,
Martin
Martin,
Sorry for your mast and sails.Really bed news.
One question:
why did you think you need to let the main off or the traveller off ? In these situations I always keep the traveller in the centre, and keep the main sheeted hard. Open the main not only risky because of the mast, but as the top of the main open it will produce a bigger area in the wind and it just force the boat pichpoling even more.
In my experience you can survive these situations only with an experimented crew. He need to let the spi of in time, moving back in time (if still not there), and the most important: as the boat stopped in the wave or just in a bit earlier sheet the spi again hardly. As the spi will work again it will lift the bow from wave and the boat will running in downwind again. Timing is a key factor here, bed timing would worse the situation even more.
If I see too much risk of nosediving because the conditions I use to let of the spi tack line a few cm, let say 5-10cm. So the spi will lift the bow continuously a bit (look like a skiff).
and finally the most important I would like to say: your blog is brilliant, keep blogging !
Hi Sanyi
Thanks for your post.
As pointed, you never ever let/ease the main sheet with the spi in these conditions.
Regarding crew we weren´t that coordinated, we never sailed together in 20knots and he is a 1 year F18 sailor that never crew he is a skipper.
My error though, it was better to pitch pole, really hard to do in my F18, you can submerge and cover the entire tramp and survive, but those short steep waves + that wind wasn´t easy. The Infusion guys are the most experimented here and they went down too.
And regarding waves…hehe when you'll have the opportunity of riding our special river conditions, you'll know what I'm talking about!
Cheers,
Martin
is there a fast flow on that river ? and are not there to match river drift in the water ?
We are usually sailing on a lake here but I thinking about to sail on a river. I'm a bit afraid of damage the hull or the dagger boars.
It is an open river (Rio de la Plata) close to a huge delta.
https://www.thepictures.us/images/lf3725w72n595wo1hy6.jpg
Buenos Aires is located on the right down corner of the image.
You can have strong currents, you also have shallow waters and 1mts daggers are dangerous, rudders? Santi Lange told me he broke more than 20 on his Tornado. And I repair several transoms already!
Being shallow waters you have these short steep waves, they are beaking waves sometimes,I described it once here as being on a shorebreak the whole regatta.
You can be trimmed perfectly sailing upwind and a wave can smashed you out, like a rugby 'french tackle', is rough in heavy weather.
Downwind: waves have short amp, so you are constantly riding over, or slicing through, sometimes you don´t have time to react, its a great training ground though.
The mast issue was a huge error, and it is the 1st thing I remark to clients when delivering a new boat! That´s why 'Spi sailing 101', its basic and a primordial tip to follow.