Light air sailing and rig tune

In the past we have struggled with the performance of the First 260 in lighter airs. It's clear that with her fixed non-overlapping jib and large wetted surface area, the boat was never going to be a superstar in light (3-6 kts) conditions, but we knew (or hoped!) that we could make the boat faster.

While some of the tricks are common for many boats (lighten the boat/crew, keeping weight off the transom, etc, one of the biggest and 260-specific changes we made was switching to a dedicated set of rig tunes for light airs. We are now quite happy with her performance in the light.

As we do this on our First 36.7, we attempted to do so as well on the 260, but in hindsight we failed to make enough bands to allow the rig to be quite loose in light airs. It was (and still is!) quite a work in progress as there is no official tuning guide for the boat, and the general guidelines for swept-fractional rigging setting makes for a setup WAY too tight for light airs.

The KEY is to allow the forestay to sag and power-up the jib. Crew weight should also be distributed to allow the boat to heel and settle in with as little paint in the water as possible.

We broke the true wind speed into three bands, and tune the rig to that. The tension numbers are from a Loos PT2 wire tension gauge. In particular, the LOW setting allows the forestay to sag almost a foot. This give the sail a full and very powerful shape.

The rigging is adjusted by applying half-turns to the Vertical (V) and Diagonal (D) shrouds. Plus or minus as shown on the chart. I procured two sets of three different color dyneema 1/8 lines, one for each side. The current state of the rigging is noted by the color of the dyneema that is tying the turnbuckle bodies together. By doing this, we do not have to measure the tension every time we change it, just as long as we know what setting we are currently on and what setting we want to end up at. Note that the turnbuckle sides are facing each other, as this helps count turns as well as secure them when tied. On the chart, the bottom numbers are the actual tension measurements as expressed as a percentage of the breaking strength of the wire than can be used with the gauge as a check.

We mark the deck so the crew is clear which way to turn the body. Based on the chart and the current and desired settings for the day they apply the correct number of half turns to each set. They then re-tie the bodies so they cannot turn with the correct color dyneema. We set to the lower of the bands of the wind is is predicted to be between two bands or fade over time. In addition, the backstay can be use to remove sag from the forestay if the wind comes up. 

As for sailing, we now ease and foot until the boat come up to her target speed for the TWS, and then turn up and trim while maintaining speed. Building speed before pointing is key because the boat generates lift and apparent wind much better when moves fast. We're holding our own now.



One more thing... all this constant rig tuning can be very hard on turnbuckles. We use BoeShield T-9 waterproof lubricant (developed by Boeing Aircraft) to lube the screws. It is a great product and I can't recommend it highly enough for turnbuckles.