Can only tack close-reach nothing closer.

[Robbie]

i have an O'day Daysailer 2 sailing in north carolina lakes and im unable to achieve more of a turn to close-haul. ive been sailing since October of last year and have yet to have more of angle into wind such as 45 or 50 degrees (in can only reach 65/70degrees), can only move at a close reach. im trimming sails in as mush as possible as well tried other forms, but now wondering and hoping im missing something. the winds are usually 5 to 15knts. so, when tacking the close-reach just adds time to my advance, but would like to improve to have more control. if i turn more toward a close-haul, trim in sails or adjust accordingly, i loose wind and motion. any ideas? im sailing with the jib and main. thanks

[TIM WEBB]

There are many variables involved in how well any sailboat points to windward, and I'm sure there are many others on this forum who are much more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, but here are a few things that I have found that have helped, in no particular order:

- Boom vang. The more powerful the better.
- Positive downhauls on both rudder and CB, with auto-release on both in case of UUO (Unidentified Underwater Object) strike. (see my photos in the gallery for details).
- Ability to reef the main quickly.
- Barber inhaulers for the jib sheets.

I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking about at the moment. In any case, if you have "blown out" sails, you will find it very hard to point effectively. The first step towards being able to sail the boat correctly is a decent set of sails. They're not cheap, but once you have good fabric flying, you will notice the improvement right away!

[GreenLake]

@Robbie, I assume that you are not sailing with recently purchased sails, but possibly really old ones? That can be a factor in and of itself.

I've found that barber inhaulers were helpful in higher winds (>10kts) to help my old jib set well and I was rewarded by better pointing.

You can easily jury-rig them to see whether they will do something for you. Take a piece of rope, make a fixed loop at one end, and thread your jib-sheet through. Now tie or cleat the free end of the rope to something on the center of the cuddy roof, or even the other side of the boat, so that it will pull the middle of the jib sheet inward (but not more than about 18" from center).

If that simple rig shows improvement, you can upgrade to a more dedicated setup.

Is your jib-sheet tension high enough? It can be tempting to let the jib have too much of a curve, esp. if you are trying to get an older sail to set.
Do you have tell-tales on your jib? Do you know where you want your jib cars set for the winds you sail in?

On your main, it would help if you described a bit better what setup you are using, DS's come with many mainsheet setups.

[Chris Brown]

In addition to the items mentioned above, I would also check 2 more:

1. Outhaul tension: I have replaced my outhaul with a 4:1 purchase system that has drastically improved my ability to point.
2. Mast rake: If the top of the mast is too far aft, the boat will not point well.

[K.C. Walker]

In addition to what the other guys said, technique and conditions also play a big part in pointing ability. In high leeway conditions it's difficult point high, that is light air or heavy air. Also waves affect your ability to point. Even with ideal conditions of moderate air and smooth water the DaySailer is not famous for its pointing ability.

If you have ideal pointing conditions you still need to pay a lot of attention to sailing technique to be able to point high. It takes more concentration to be able to point high than any other point of sail. After setting up your boat correctly and getting the sails set correctly for conditions, to get to a high angle of pointing you need to go to the "gears" to get the boat up to speed before you start to point, that is, work your way up to pointing. If you lose speed trying to point you need to go back through the "gears" so that you get speed before trying to point.

You also need to keep the boat upright and "on its feet". If the boat is heeled over it is difficult to point. I find the addition of hiking straps helps a lot for keeping the boat upright. Keeping the boat upright is actually more difficult than one might expect. It's even difficult to be able to tell that you've got the boat bolt upright. Often when you think you have it upright it is still heeled over. I even practiced trying to heel the boat to windward and find that it's still difficult to get it flat. An inclinometer would be a good addition but I don't have one yet, though it is on my list.

Another thing, boat wise, that can affect your pointing ability is your centerboard. If it's in really bad shape and banged up it definitely affects your upwind performance.

With whatever sails you have, old or new, you want to make sure that you have good balance for close hauled performance. If you feel too much weather or lee helm when you are close hauled you may need to adjust your mast rake, as this also affects pointing ability.

You also want to move your crew weight as far forward as possible. A good hiking stick is a great addition and helps with pointing. Not only do you sit out on the rail to help keep the boat flat but you can get far forward.

Going directly upwind you are going for "velocity made good", that is the least amount of time to get there. There's a balance between speed and pointing and sometimes pointing is not as fast as speed and a wider angle.

Whoa, I guess I better go work.

[jdoorly]

That's some real good advice Robbie, but if you don't know how to implement it maybe you could do a little crewing on other peoples boats. You can garner more good info by Googling "tuning guide for O'day Daysailer" and by asking more questions on this forum. Good Luck!

[Robbie]

Thanks so much for all the advice. I'm going out tomorrow and attempt the various suggestions. Thank you. I will hopefully update with solution.

[GreenLake]

I've moved this to a new location because it's really not DSII specific.

[Robbie]

I was unable to make the drive up to the lake/sailboat, so hopefully, I'll be there Wednesday and make a few adjustments and figure this pointing thing out. All the suggestions has actually provided an education on this matter as I'm six months old to sailing...twenty years later than hoped.

[GreenLake]

I had someone follow me in another boat once, (just any sailboat, wasn't even a DS) who noticed that I was off the wind by 15 degrees on one tack, and not the other. I hadn't noticed. Moral: get help on the water.

If you grossly mis-tune your sails, the telltales can give the wrong answer. For example, if you let out your jib too much, it's obviously not set for close upwind work. But your telltails will be happy on a reach - they are merely reporting that the airstream fits the way the sail is set.

That's why the jib telltales are called steering telltales, I guess. They tell you how to steer your boat based on how the jib is set to keep the airflow attached. For pointing, you'd start with the jib pretty flat - I think you can pull it in all the way until you see a crease at the foot then let out just a bit. That should be ball-park.

Then you steer so your jib telltales fly on both sides and crank the main sheet in, until its telltales fly as described. That should give you good results (best in in 5-10 knt wind) and you can go from there.

Next you'd play with jib-lead position fore/aft based on wind strength and barber inhauls (more in higher winds).

As you go from 11 to higher winds (up to 2o+) you'd let out inhauls and make other changes - but if you're really rather new, focus on getting things right in the low to medium wind range, where you won't be fighting the boat and where you get plenty feedback for your actions (extremely light winds are a bad way to learn for that reason).

Good luck.

[talbot]

I found there was nothing that helped quite so much as a new set of sails. None of the other controls cited here made much difference until I had a decent airfoil to work with. Then suddenly the vang, traveller, and barber leads began to work as the manual said they would.

As in so many things nautical, the answer always seems to involve money. I found the best deal on new canvas at Intensity a couple of years ago, but shop around.

[kokko]

When pointing there is a tendency to over-sheet. You keep pulling on the jib and main sheets and you will not point any higher- and the boat will stall.
Your best guide are the tell-tales. Get them all streaming aft. It is iterative since adjusting one effects the other sail.

[GreenLake]

In my transition to a new set of sails, I somehow ended up under-sheeting. The telltales where flying fine, but I was sailing 15-20° off the wind....without noticing that I could go higher. The old sails had a nice curve no matter how tight I pulled them, so I was subconsciously duplicating that.

The problem is, the telltales can only tell you that the air is streaming correctly across the sail. In other words, they can tell you whether apparent wind direction (effectively based on the course steered) and angle of attack (determined by sheeting angle) correspond to each other (or not, as the case may be). However, off the wind there are many different settings where these two correspond.

If you coversheet a little and point too high, your speed will fall off, and your leeway will increase dramatically, but subjectively you may continue to experience the boat as pointing high (and without direct comparison with another boat, you may not notice the loss of speed). Hence the danger of oversheeting.

I think it's useful in learning (or in unlearning bad habits) to have an idea where the "ballpark" is for sail settings, and then try small alterations of trim around those.

A more experienced dinghy sailor suggested that I start with sheeting the jib to a point were the foot forms a crease - and then back off some from there to get near a reasonable close hauled setting. For the main, a similar "ballpark" figure is to have the lower batten parallel to the centerline. (Always in "medium wind", which would be somewhere in the range of 6-12 knt).

Does that sound "too tight" for the DS?

[SUNBIRD]

I assume that you are running the jibsheets INSIDE the shrouds? They should be inside the shrouds, in other words, between the mast and shroud, On some bigger boats the jibsheets are runn outside the shrouds, but small boats like the DS rig them inside.
I'm sure yo uhave them rigged correct, but ohter than blown out sails....I can't think of any other cause for not pointing.

[GreenLake]

Rod,

were you addressing @Robbie?
He's not been back here since March.