1. Notes on J80 Light Wind Trim on the Beat
Lots and lots of twist in both the main and jib when it's light, using traveller and car placement (weather and aft respectively) to adjust leech tension. Make sure you're slot is happy with the twist in the jib matching the main. In light conditions your trimmer can stay the leeward and keep an eye on it.
1.1 Main - Light Winds
A. Let off the outhaul when it's light wind. A lot of people tend to run too much outhaul in the light and choke out the bottom of the main, make sure it's eased enough for a nice belly down low.
C. In light winds, leave the tack unhooked and use the cunningham to fine tune the luff.
D. Out of the tacks you're going to have to be pretty fat until the apparent builds and then you can gently come up while trimming on. Small changes will have a big impact and if you try force it you'll never get to where you need to be.
E. The key is to keep the top telltales flying without stalling out the lower too badly, the top of the sail is doing most of the work in these conditions and the J80 likes more twist than most boats to begin with. If the top telltale is starting to hook to leeward; put a little more twist in the main with traveller up and sheet eased until it's flying nicely.
1.2 Jib - Light Winds
A Once you're main is working make sure you don't choke the slot with the jib leech being too tight; match the twist in the main with the car and use the halyard to just take out the scallops in the luff.
B. In light winds, see if you can improve pointing by using the lazy sheet as an inf***er (don't like this word, but it seems to be in universal use). You may need to move the jib cars back a hole or two to allow the clew to move towards the mast.
2. Notes on Backstay, Kicker, Mainsheet and Mainsheet Traveller when beating
A In light airs, the backstay and kicker will be loose and you have complete control of the sail shape with the mainsheet and traveller. In this case you should trim the main until the top tell-tale is flying about 50 - 70 percent of the time with the boom held in the middle by pulling the traveller up to windward. In the J80 the main is mostly trimmed using the traveller - regard this as the way of controlling how much the boat heels, dropping down the track in the gusts or when the wind picks up.
B Once the breeze is up to the point where the boat is fully powered up and it is necessary to ease the traveller, then you must also use the backstay and kicker to help control the mainsail shape. From this point on it is impossible to stop all the tell-tales flying, so we must use the balance and feel of the helm to help us trim the mainsail instead. The principle of sailing the J80 in fully powered conditions is to have the mainsheet locked off and play the traveller through the gusts. You then use the kicker and backstay to control the drive and power in the main to balance the helm properly. When everything is set up perfectly the boat will have a reasonable amount of weather helm. When a gust hits and you ease the traveller the boat should accelerate easily and smoothly and the helm will feel light and sensitive almost to the point where it is neutral - with neither weather nor lee helm.
C. If you have pulled on the backstay and kicker too tight, then you will have neutral helm before any gust hits and the boat will not point. Apart from feeling wrong so that you will have to push the rudder around a lot to make the boat steer, you will notice your lack of pointing ability very quickly compared to the boats around you. If you have not pulled on the backstay and kicker enough to de-power the mainsail, then the helm will not go neutral before the mainsail starts flogging in a gust. So you must learn to judge from the feel of the helm, and the way the boat accelerates in a gust, whether or not the mainsail needs more or less power. N.B. You pull the kicker and backstay on to de-power, and ease them to power up.
D. Generally the kicker will de-power the lower third of the mainsail and the backstay the top two thirds. You shouldn’t pull the kicker on so much that you create luff starvation creases. This distortion will consist of vertical creases running from the mast towards the clew, and it will be particularly severe around the track feed on the mast three or four feet above the gooseneck. If you see these luff starvation creases, ease the kicker and pull on more backstay. If you have too much backstay and not enough kicker, then you will find that the sail starts to backwind low down the moment you ease the traveller in a gust. This is because with not enough kicker, the bottom of the mainsail is too full, and when you ease it, it falls straight into the jib exhaust and backwinds.
To contact Andy you can call +447813213201 or email andymcg@ntlworld.com
