In preparation for the Sarcoma Cup, here are my 2 cents.
Hopefully, those of you (Northern California) will come up with more advice for us, southern light air sailors.

1) Check your rig tension. The diamond wires but be set no less than 190 kgs. The shrouds should also be set at 190 kgs, no more than 205 kgs. If it is blowing more than 25 knots in the bay, your mast will be nicely supported by the diamond and the aft shrouds.

2) Mast rake. In San Francisco, I like to have more rake in the mast. It depowers the boat a bit better. I basically attach my headstay to the 4th hole on the headstay chainplate, as opposed to the 5th hole (count holes from the top of the plate down).

3) It's better to be 3 on the boat in the breeze. Race results have shown that you will point lower and sail slower if you are overpowered. Ideal crew weight in 20-30 knots of breeze is between 480 to 510 lbs. That is half the boat's total displacement!

3) Sailing upwind. If I am overpowered, I travel the main down until the helm because neutral again. Also, in these conditions, I put tension on the vang. Keeping the vang on allows to spill air out of the main and maintains some leech tension...in other words, you will not slow the boat to much when easing the main out in the puffs. In the breeze, upwind again, I give the mainsheet to one of my crew. It is more efficient and your crew can trim the main with both hands. Before tacking, your crew should hand you the main, tack the boat and give it back to your crew. The jib should be flat, usually 4 holes showing from the back of the jib track, or less if you are still overpowered. Keep an eye on the forward/aft balance of the boat. In the breeze, it is better to have your first crew just behind the shroud, as opposed to in front of it in light air.

4) Sailing Downwind. Do not hesite to fly the spinnaker. The boat will unload and will be easier to maneuver. Without the spinnaker, you will still be in displacement mode (pushing water), the helm will be very hard and the main sail completely loaded. When rounding the weather mark, take a wide turn, make sure to ease your jib a lot to allow the bow to turn. Travel the main all the way down and if necessary, ease out the main. Keep a steady course downwind and allow your crew to take care of the set. One should hoist the spinnaker and the other one should get the tack/pole out pretty much at the same time. Make sure the windward spinnaker sheet is uncleated and free from knots, jump on the working spinnaker sheet and move back. Helms person and spinnaker trimmer should be in the back of the boat right away while the third crew cleans the deck. If the breeze is up enough, you can fly the jib. If your vang was on during the upwind leg, ease it out a bit. Your main traveler should be all the way down but your mainsheet should be trimmed all the way on, especially if there's more than 20 knots of wind.
Enjoy the ride, gybe WITH SPEED. Anticipate. Take your spinnaker down long time before you get to the mark. Racing at 15 knots of boat speed, everything goes much faster (about 3 times faster as a matter of fact than sailing at 5 knots downwind in southern california).

Any comments?

jerome
usa 275

I would add that in the breeze you want a ton of mainsheet tension on at all times upwind (mainsheet == backstay). Mainsheet keeps headstay tension which allows you to point and feather. If you ease the mainsheet, your headstay sags and you go sideways and lose control too. Once you have neutral helm, feather the boat over the waves concentrating on proper heel angle. Steer for the heel angle when overpowered. The fastest is when it feels like your rudder is just following the boat over the waves and everything is neutral.

The only time I would ease mainsheet is if you totally loose it and round up.

Use the traveller as Jerome says to neutralize the helm. In very high wind (30+), the traveller may be all the way down even, but you will still be efficient upwind. Bring traveller back up when you can without gaining too much helm. Drop it when weather helm increases.

The other point is the jib lead. It helps greatly in high wind to twist of the top of the jib, this allows for the travelled down main to breath better, increasing your forward drive and control and pointing too. Seriously, jib lead is a big deal and changes the character of the boat in a breeze.

At least on our boat, it is not uncommon to be only 2 holes from back of track in 25 and ALL the way back in 30+. Trim the jib tight. Don't bear off, keep sailing high on the wind.

I doubt you'll see this in SF, but IF you can't fly the chute at the mark because the wind is too high (30+), go wing on wing instead. It balances the boat and she will fly dead downwind on a plane in total control in very high winds. Keep crew low inside boat and be careful not to gybe main. Have crew hold jib sheet out like a strut.

[edit] Just thought of a little rule. If you think of your traveler in relation to your jib lead. If you are sailing with centered traveler, this relates to jib lead in the more forward (think baseline) setting. As you are forced to lower traveler to neutralize helm in higher winds, move jib lead same relative distance aft. So when you have to be traveled all the way down, your jib lead is all the way back too. Maybe that works as a reference.

Well to complete this thread, we should talk downwind too. Downwind technique in heavy air definitely took longer to figure out. In fact it took the probably hundred+ gybes we did in Double Damned and sailing with 2 skiff sailors to figure it out. Still learning. Didn't really click until after DD, when had time to process it all.

We've learned in a vacuum, so take it with a grain of salt.

First of all, 3 people is ideal in a big breeze downwind. 25-30+

The stations are similar to upwind in a breeze.

Helm - helm and traveler
Middle - Main
Forward - chute trim

Crew Position and Weight

The middle guy is key. Main control on this boat is really important in big breeze.

Our modified double ended sheeting, aft and skiff off boom helps a lot. But with OD sheeting, it still works with middle position.

Heel - We've learned that 5 degrees of heel is ideal for boatspeed. When crew is in position. Helm can feel how deep to go by maintaining this heel angle with pressure.

Now crew position is something we do different from you guys I bet. This is newly learned.

Don't put all 3 on rail. Helmsman should be leaning out in straps mainly for good visibility. Forward position, is just sitting on rail, not leaning out so helmsman can see. Now here's the cool position....

Put the middle guy on main in the center of the boat, kneeling in front of helmsman looking forward. Works better with skiff sheeting but should work with aft sheeting too. There is no need to hike this boat downwind. If you need to hike all 3 people, you are sailing too high!! Drive deeper. The best is these 3 positions, 5 degrees heel. Until...you can't go deeper. If it's that windy, then move the middle back to rail. If it's really big waves, you may need middle in straps as well, depending.

Gybing

Before the gybe you want crew in positions above. You want some vang on to untwist the big flathead main so it flips easier and doesn't pin to one side.

Our gybes are executed as so. Before we figured this out, we had a lot of wipe outs, but this works everytime.

Right before gybe, helmsman waits for a good plane, finds a wave to turn down, then right before Gybe, brings traveller like 1/3 way from center.

Middle crew trims on like 10' or more of mainsheet accelerating into gybe.

Forward crew, on windward side, next to lazy sheet block, uncleats both sheets and holds both in hand with tension on both active and lazy, gets ready to run across the boat to new windward side, this motion of moving across boat will simulataneously ease active sheet and trim lazy sheet (remember it's 8' across). After they arrive on new windward side, trim like mad on new active sheet to get around headstay and set chute as early as possible.

During carve, middle positon is key. Needs to grab the boom and push it through the wind, as it flips across, ease all that sheet you took in before the gybe. This helps the boat accelerate smoothly out of the gybe and helps the helmsman steer down again.

Downwind in General

Mainsheet trimmer, trims on actively going down the wave, with max trim when you impact bottom of wave, then eases main out till cresting top of wave and trims on again going down wave. This gives you max power at top of wave to get through it, it gives you max acceleration down wave and having main trimmed in at bottom of wave protects the rig during impact into bottom of wave.

All the positions are important, but the good thing is that each position doesn't have a lot to do, so once you get it, it's not that hard.

Helmsman executes the s-turn as boom is flipping. After s-ing down after the boom flip, might have to come back up a little to fill chute as necessary.

Helmsman eases traveller again only after boat is stabilized and planing on new gybe.