{"id":158678,"date":"2025-06-25T06:32:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T05:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=158678"},"modified":"2025-06-25T06:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T05:33:10","slug":"5-expert-tips-your-complete-guide-to-mainsail-trimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/expert-sailing-techniques\/5-expert-tips-your-complete-guide-to-mainsail-trimming-158678","title":{"rendered":"5 Expert Tips: Your complete guide to mainsail trimming"},"content":"Learning to live in a thin lane is one of the key skills that separate the great from the good. As Henry Wetherell explains, having boats tight to windward and to leeward of you requires everyone in the crew to work in synchronisation.\r\n\r\nAlthough Wetherell has sailed for a number of seasons with helmsman John Pollard, Australian sailor David Chapman was a new addition to Team Xcellent for the SB20 Worlds in Singapore. \u201cWe put in as much time as possible before sailing the Worlds together, a winter series event in Cascais, and some good training time in Singapore including the Pre-Worlds,\u201d says Henry.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou can\u2019t really just turn up and win, you\u2019ve got to put the time in together, and living in a thin lane is one of those areas that really tests your teamwork and coordination.\u201d Here are Henry\u2019s five best tips for surviving and thriving in a tight spot.\r\n

Focus on the trim<\/h2>\r\nOf course you want to be focused on accurate sail trim at all times, but living in a thin lane is where the small details become absolutely critical. One false move and you could get spat out of the front row.\r\n\r\nIf your main threat is to leeward then you need to be trimming as tight as you possibly can without stalling the sails or the foils. On the other hand if your chief threat is from windward and you\u2019re at risk of getting rolled then you need to be able to foot off and trim for maximum speed.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n

Watch the jib leech<\/h2>\r\nThere\u2019s a window halfway up the SB20 mainsail luff which allows us to see the top of the jib leech. I spend a lot of my time looking up at the jib leech telltale, checking in with the other guys and squeezing in the jib sheet as hard as it will go. When you\u2019re looking for maximum pointing you\u2019re taking that leech telltale to the edge of stalling without it ever actually reaching that point. If it\u2019s flowing freely all the time you can probably afford to sheet in harder.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile the helmsman is focusing on the luff telltale towards the bottom of the jib and I\u2019m glancing at that too, to make sure we\u2019re properly on the breeze. If a big lift hits us and the leeward telltales are lifting, I need to make sure I\u2019m easing the jib until we\u2019ve luffed up to the new course. So it\u2019s not just looking up all the time, it\u2019s being constantly aware of the wider situation around you.\r\n

Work the mainsail<\/h2>\r\nThe way we work the team on the SB20, the mainsail trimmer has overall control of the boat. Dave [Chapman] monitors the changing tactical situation, and we adjust the trim and the steering to what he says is the current priority for any given moment. Dave\u2019s primary controls are the mainsheet and traveller but he\u2019s also calling for vang on\/off depending on how much power is needed at the time.\r\n\r\nIn Singapore when we were getting off the start line with people pinching high to hold their lane, we\u2019d be maxed-up on the traveller and easing the vang to keep the power in the mainsail. The backstay is mostly eased too, and you\u2019re trying to keep everyone\u2019s weight out as long as possible without dumping any power.\r\n\r\nOnce we\u2019re getting overpowered we\u2019ll pull on the backstay first, then the vang, then the outhaul, all with the traveller still high up the track.\r\n\r\nArticle continues below...<\/em>\r\n\r\n[collection]\r\n

Backstay and vang<\/h2>\r\nEvery boat is different in terms of how to vary the power in changing conditions. If you ever get a chance to look from behind at your boat you\u2019ll see how much backstay adjustment affects the leech profiles of both sails. The backstay bends the mast from the top, which opens the mainsail and jib leeches at the same time. So every time the backstay moves, the trim needs to change on the sails.\r\n\r\nIn the SB20 fleet on Team Xcellent we\u2019re quite vang-heavy. We leave the traveller quite high and then vang-sheet the mainsail. The vang is a good tool to flatten the bottom of the mainsail while also increasing forestay tension, which flattens the entry to the jib.\r\n\r\nWhile the vang is a useful upwind tool on the SB20, for the J\/70 and other bigger keelboats like the Cape 31 they\u2019re much more reliant on a combination of backstay and traveller. Whatever class you\u2019re sailing in, you need to know how to make these changes instinctively and that only comes from time in the boat.\r\n

Know when to bail<\/h2>\r\nNine times out of 10, once you\u2019ve lost the line of the boat in front and you\u2019ve fallen to leeward of them, you don\u2019t want to be in their gas any longer. It\u2019s time to bail out and get back into clear air. There are exceptions to the rule, such as when there\u2019s a really strong tidal gain on one side of the course. That\u2019s one of those rare occasions when the lesser of two evils is to suck up the bad air for a bit longer.\r\n\r\n
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Experienced sailor though he may be, Alain Sign has had his hands full getting to grips with the role of mainsheet trimmer in a fleet as competitive as the Cape 31. Alain sees the mainsheet trimmer\u2019s role as the hub, the central nervous system which is connected to every other role on the boat. \u201cI\u2019m having a conversation with pretty much everyone else on board,\u201d he says. \u201cWith the trim you\u2019re looking to guide the helm to where they\u2019re going, and I\u2019m taking my cue from what the tactician is saying. Then I\u2019m talking with the runner trimmer looking for power-on or power-off. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s maintaining the right relationship between main and jib trim, working together through the gusts, lulls and shifts.\u201d Data analysis is another trend creeping into Cape 31 racing, with an analyst back on shore looking at when the boat was fast or slow and feeding the details back to the team before the next day\u2019s racing. Through the wind range, different elements of the multiple array of sail controls take on different levels of importance. Here are Alain\u2019s five best tips for keeping your mainsail \u2013 and the overall boat speed \u2013 at the highest level of performance through different wind speeds. Article continues below… Mode priorities All the time you need to be asking yourself, \u2018What am I trying to achieve with the setup?\u2019. I\u2019m listening very carefully to the tactician\u2019s priorities at any given moment as you need to mode the rig to what they need. Is it a fast-forward mode, or a high VMG mode, for example? On a stable day I\u2019m looking to control the heel angle so will be constantly playing around with the traveller. I\u2019m also looking at boat speed and true wind angle, checking how close we\u2019re sailing to the breeze. With the helmsman I\u2019m moving between sailing not too high and not too low, working to find the VMG sweet spot, managing the relationship between traveller position and mainsheet tension as my two primary controls. Ease for speed In sub-powered light wind conditions, if you\u2019re struggling to get the boat moving, ease for speed. Make sure you ease the mainsheet and the jib to create really open leeches for the air to move past. Ensure lots of twist and don\u2019t steer too close to the breeze, not until you\u2019ve built the speed and momentum. As soon as you get over 6 knots of breeze it\u2019s good to bring the traveller all the way to windward, even to the point where the boom is two or three degrees above the centreline of the boat. This creates \u2018false load\u2019, creating a bit more weather helm and feel for the helmsman to work off. Harden that leech As you begin to progress into full power conditions, start closing off the mainsail leech. Now you\u2019re starting to drop the traveller further to leeward, maintaining your target heel angle. You\u2019re also working with the fine-tune on the mainsheet, and with the runners …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5203,"featured_media":158680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[975],"tags":[846,934,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158681,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158678\/revisions\/158681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158678"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=158678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}