by Alex Simanis
SET-UP TIPS FOR SHORTHANDED RACERS
N
ear the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, my friend Pete Dorsey and I started talking about doing a very informal series of shorthanded racing with people only in our households. We were really worried about whether it was safe or responsible to put it on, though, and ultimately we limited it to 12 boats and didn’t promote it at all. It was a beautiful spring day for that first race. Once we got out there, there were so many other boats out that I quickly realized that our dozen boats weren’t going to be a problem with authorities. With the help of Bob Foulds from the Sloop Tavern, we had created a pursuit race time calculator, with timed starts. We sailed from Spring Beach to Blakely Rock, over to Duwamish Head, and back to Shilshole. Thus began this year of shorthanded sailing. My sailing partner, Elishia Van Luven, and I already had significant shorthanded experience together on our Evelyn 32, Poke and Destroy. We sailed to Hawaii for Pac Cup with a crew of four, and have done many of the local doublehanded races, like Race to the Straits. But for many people, 2020 has been a first foray into shorthanded racing.
48º NORTH
If a boat has been raced regularly, it’s not likely that it will need a major gear overhaul to improve the shorthanded experience, because racers are always looking for efficiency. Still, there are many approaches that can make shorthanded racing safer, more efficient, and more fun. MANAGE THE MAIN One piece of advice is to make all of your controls more accessible and easier to adjust. After downwind spinnaker sailing in breeze, I think the mainsail is the next hardest thing to handle for shorthanded crews. Mainsheets can get a bit unruly if it’s windy, so having a good fine-tune set-up to increase purchase can be helpful. It’s especially important on bigger boats that would normally have a dedicated mainsail trimmer— you’ve got to be able to easily trim your main while you drive or do something else. On some boats it’s a fine-tune system; on others, it might be winches. On the Evelyn, we have a single block and tackle system that attaches to the traveler, but I led a fine-tune to both sides. A lot of the J/Boats in the area (J/105s and J/80s) utilize a separate
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OCTOBER 2020
