A24 - Sailing Tips

 Achilles 24 Sailing tips from Chris Butler, 1976.

• General A24 sailing tips.
• Fore and Aft Sails and their Setting.
• Spinnakers.
• Rig tuning - Mast Rake and Rigging Tension.

General A24 sailing tips.

In very light conditions it pays to heel the boat to leeward so that gravity will help form the sails into a useful shape; use a foreguy to stop the boom shaking about and knocking the wind out of the mainsail even when beating to windward. It also pays in light airs to have some of the crew weight on the foredeck to reduce wetted area aft. Even more necessary is for the crew not to move about unless it is essential as nothing stops a boat more quickly in these conditions than having an elephant running about on deck.

In any wind conditions it does not pay to move the tiller about too much or too viciously. Every movement of the rudder slows the boat down. If you have excessive weather helm first check that you do not have the mainsheet too tight before adjusting the sail tensions. Even when cruising always fly a burgee, or better still, a "Great Hawk" or "Windex" wind indicator.

As all yacht rudders stall and become inefficient when angled beyond bout 15° from the centreline, do not move the tiller more than this, even when tacking. The only time more movement is useful is when tacking in very light winds, and you are trying to push the stern round. Your rudder is acting as a paddle then and not as a piece of steering equipment.

It is a useful exercise to play with the sheet adjustments when hard on the wind in a force 3 or force 4. Having trimmed the sheets so that the sails are as near perfect as you can reasonably achieve just let go of the tiller. You should find that your Achilles will very gently luff up into the wind. Keeping the weight of the crew stationary and the weight of the helmsman to windward, bring her back on course and now harden in the genoa just a trifle and ease off the mainsheet an equal amount.

With very little experiment you will find that she will steer herself for a reasonable length of time with no one at the helm. Now with the crews weight still stationary and the helm unattended the helmsman should transfer his weight to the leeward side of the cockpit. The yacht will now, once again, gently ease herself into the wind. With practise you can steer an Achilles merely by transfering your weight from one side of the cockpit to the other in that sort of wind if the sea is moderately calm. If this cannot be done you are not handling the sails correctly or the mast rake is not correct.

These notes are intended purely as an initial guide to the Achilles 24. In Achilles you have a yacht that is very responsive, and that being so will respond to tuning in a most satisfactory manner. Whether you are mainly interested in racing or cruising you have a fast craft that is easy to handle and will give you a pleasant, enjoyable and comfortable sail.

It only remains for us to wish you many fine seasons of enjoyment with your Achilles.

Fore and Aft Sails and their Setting

Volumes can be written on this subject, and have been. It is presumptuous of me to try to cover this subject in a few short paragraphs but some advice may well be in order. Perhaps the best advice would be to read up some of these books. In the absence of such books these notes may well help some owners, but the more expert owner will be forgiven if he has a quick glance through them and gets on with his sailing. First point is that there is no point in cramming more sail on than will make her travel at maximum speed.

Second point is that it is amazing how much sail she will carry in safety!

The most frequent combination is the large genoa and full mainsail. This combination would normally be carried up to a force 5 wind strength, though before a force 6 were reached the mainsail would be well reefed when beating to windward. Let's deal with this pair of sails first. When beating to windward in light airs you must allow the sails to be full and nicely fat; greedy for more air in them yet not stretched in their luffs; there is only a given number of square feet of cloth in the construction of the sails and no ammount of stretching will increase it.

For the large genoa, tack it down close to the deck and haul on the halyard just enough to eliminate any horizontal puckering on the luff between the hanks or creases at the hanks. As the wind strength increases winch up the halyard just enough to keep these creases non-existent. The mainsail should be similarly treated to keep any horizontal creases away from the luff but remember it also has an outhaul. This control should be tensioned so as to remove any vertical creases along the foot. Any sign of vertical folds in the luff of the sails indicates overtight halyards and a horizontal fold in the foot of the mainsail tells you that you have over-tightened the clew outhaul and that it needs to be eased until it disappears.

As the wind strength increases still more it will no longer be sufficient to adjust sail shape only with the halyards and the clew outhaul. This is when the Cunningham Eyes come into play. The Cunningham Eye tackle is supplied as standard equipment only for the mainsail; provision is built into the genoa with an eye cringle about a foot above the tack, so that suitable tackle will need to be added to take advantage of it. The tackle is hauled down to stretch the luff still more.

The need for all this stretching of the luff is to flatten the sail by pulling cloth out of the centre of the sail and transfering it along the luff. By this means you change a full cut sail into a flat one. You need a flat sail in higher wind strengths to avoid excessive weather helm; if you have a full sail in strong winds the fullness of the sail is blown aft till not only does it loose power but it pushes the centre of pressure in the sail aft thus increasing weather helm and causing the yacht to heel unnecessarily.

Around force 5 winds you will need to reduce sail. Keep the large genoa up and put as many rolls in the main as you need to counter undue heel and pull on the tiller. When reefing the mainsail it is utterly essential to pull the leech of the sail aft to keep it flat. Once there is the need to reef you will get just about all the power you want from the genoa and you need only regard the mainsail as a means of preserving the slot between the two sails, and maintain correct balance on the helm.

The importance of the slot (if of the right shape) cannot be overstressed. It is a means of increasing the power in the genoa and of re-attaching the wind to the leeward side of the sail to counteract the disturbance caused by the mast. The "slot" is the area between the two sails and you should endeavour to keep this parallel from top to bottom.

Undoubtedly the finest aid to sail setting, and the cheapest, is to add woollen tufts to the forward part of the sail. Take three or so pieces of black wool about 12" long and pass each halfway through the sail 9" aft of the luff and in the middle of a panel sewing them in place; position them at equal distances up the sail.

You can see both halves of them when the sail is pulling correctly, the one on the leeward side is visible through the cloth. They should be flowing along the sail horizontal and parallel to each other. When you are beating to windward and cannot come closer to the wind without pinching, the helmsman can steer by the woollen tufts in the genoa. When sailing off this position, it is the crews job to get the woollen tufts to stand like soldiers by adjustment to the sheet.

Once the mainsail has been rolled down to the second batten (remembering to haul the leech aft) and the wind is strong enough to hold the gunwhale down, it is time to change down to a smaller headsail. There is no point in allowing Achilles to heel too much, as she will not go faster. It is well worth fitting a clinometer and limiting the angle of heel to about 25°.

In gusts of course, it is sufficient to ease off the mainsail sheet to keep the yacht in balance, but it is a mistake to hold on to too much canvas for too long.

Reaching is more easy. For a given wind strength you can carry more canvas and the sails can be made fuller by easing off the Cunningham Eye. It is always worth slipping on a special reaching sheet on a snap shackle block for the genoa. It makes the world of difference.

Running before the wind the same remarks apply but it always helps to boom out the genoa opposite the mainsail (assuming there to be no spinnaker). I always find it a great comfort to rig up a foreguy when running, it holds the main boom firmly in light winds and stops it shaking the wind out of the mainsail. In strong winds it prevents an involuntary gybe and saves your head being knocked off by the boom. A foreguy is simply a line running from the end of the boom which is secured to the forward mooring cleat, after which the mainsheet is tightened in. Do remember to detach it before you gybe though!

Never, never, never sail by the lee; it slows you down, it is inefficient and it is dangerous. Far better to tack downwind keeping 10 degrees windward of dead downwind and gybe when necessary.

Spinnakers

I don't think much should be said about spinnaker work as anyone who feels he is competent to handle a spinnaker will not have to read these notes anyway. But perhaps just a few jottings will not come amiss.

Reaching: Depending on the type of spinnaker you have you will be able to reach up to about 45 degrees to the apparent wind with a starcut, or about 90 degrees to the apparent wind with a spherical cut spinny. A radial head will reach somewhere between these figures.

Shackle fairlead blocks on "U" bolts level with the helmsmans seat for both sheet and guy and always keep the tack and clew of the spinny level with one another. In practical terms this means that the pole end should be level with the pulpit and the clew level with the lifelines. The guy, not the clew of the sail should pass through the spinny pole end.

Running: As when reaching pass the guy through the pole end. When gybing, except in very light winds, do not dream of gybing dinghy fashion - end and end - for even with a spinnaker the size Achilles has, the foredeck hand can be lifted off the deck. Better to unclip the guy and dip the pole under the forestay.

If you are using the genoa as a "Big Boy" sheet it to the end of the boom with a snatch block. Leave some genoa halyard free at the top of the mast to let the luff sag away from the spinny. It is also a good plan to add a strop to the tack of the genoa for the same reason. If you do this you must arrange for it to act as a downhaul to comply with the rules; a suggestion is to take a line from the forestay deck attachment up through the sail tack, down again through the deck attachment, and back to the mooring cleat.

I think the use of a "Big Boy" is worth while only when the sea is fairly calm as otherwise the luff collides with the leech of the spinnaker and interferes with it. The spinnaker is always the most important sail where it can effectively be used. Sheet the main in somewhat to leave clear wind for the genoa, do use a foreguy and do not run by the lee.

Rig Tuning, Mast Rake and Rigging Tension.

Firstly, I will state the obvious and that is that the rigging should be tensioned such as to hold the mast to its correct degree of rake and remain straight when beating.

First of all, the question of mast rake; there can be no hard and fast rule on the degree of mast rake since it will to some extent need to be modified due to the cut of the sails and ones own preferance in boat handling. My own preference is to have neutral helm in about a force three and therefore obviously one would have slight lee helm in extremely light winds and the helm would change to weather helm about force four and increase in strength as the wind force increases. The point at which you arrange neutral helm would be a question of your own personal preference.

Speaking purely on a rule of thumb basis, set the mast rake such that the main halyard is six inches away from the mast at boom height when a heavy weight is suspended from the halyard (as though it were a plumb line). This would give a good starting point for alterations due to personal preference. This pre-supposes that the forestay and backstay are now dead tight, with the backstay tensioner fully tightened. The cap shrouds should be really quite tight, the lower shrouds being a little less tight than the cap shrouds. This, of course, would be ascertained when the boat is moored and obviously therefore with no wind pressure in the sails; it is of some advantage if there is just enough extra tension in the lower shrouds to give a gentle forward curve to the mid-section of the mast but there must be no bend whatsoever athwartships.

It must be borne in mind that until your Achilles has seen some hard sailing the rigging wire will stretch; this despite that it has been made from the least stretchy type of wire and that it is some 50% stronger than it is usual to find in boats of her displacement and sail area. Therefore it may well be necessary to go through the above procedure at least a second time to settle the wire before finally deciding the amount of rake to use.

Briefly, to increase normal weather helm the forestay bottlescrew should be loosened and the backstay bottlescrew tightened. To reduce normal weather helm loosen the backstay bottlescrew and tighten the forestay bottlescrew. Abnormal weather helm is a function of sail setting, mainsail reefing and foresail area reduction, and is dealt with under a separate section.

Some weather helm is desirable of course. It gives feel to the helm and therefore the ability to steer a steady course. In addition it reduces leeway by increasing the hydrodynamic lift to windward; though this benefit is lost by inducing drag if the angle of the rudder exceeds about 4° from the centreline of the yacht.