5 expert tips: How to hold a lane upwind

Keelboat and dinghy champion Henry Wetherell shares tips on how to hold a lane upwind with Andy Rice

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.

Although 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. “We 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,” says Henry.

“You can’t really just turn up and win, you’ve 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.” Here are Henry’s five best tips for surviving and thriving in a tight spot.

Focus on the trim

Of 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.

If 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’re at risk of getting rolled then you need to be able to foot off and trim for maximum speed.

Watch the jib leech

There’s 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’re looking for maximum pointing you’re taking that leech telltale to the edge of stalling without it ever actually reaching that point. If it’s flowing freely all the time you can probably afford to sheet in harder.

Meanwhile the helmsman is focusing on the luff telltale towards the bottom of the jib and I’m glancing at that too, to make sure we’re properly on the breeze. If a big lift hits us and the leeward telltales are lifting, I need to make sure I’m easing the jib until we’ve luffed up to the new course. So it’s not just looking up all the time, it’s being constantly aware of the wider situation around you.

Work the mainsail

The 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’s primary controls are the mainsheet and traveller but he’s also calling for vang on/off depending on how much power is needed at the time.

In Singapore when we were getting off the start line with people pinching high to hold their lane, we’d 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’re trying to keep everyone’s weight out as long as possible without dumping any power.

Once we’re getting overpowered we’ll pull on the backstay first, then the vang, then the outhaul, all with the traveller still high up the track.

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Backstay and vang

Every 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’ll 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.

In the SB20 fleet on Team Xcellent we’re 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.

While the vang is a useful upwind tool on the SB20, for the J/70 and other bigger keelboats like the Cape 31 they’re much more reliant on a combination of backstay and traveller. Whatever class you’re sailing in, you need to know how to make these changes instinctively and that only comes from time in the boat.

Know when to bail

Nine times out of 10, once you’ve lost the line of the boat in front and you’ve fallen to leeward of them, you don’t want to be in their gas any longer. It’s time to bail out and get back into clear air. There are exceptions to the rule, such as when there’s a really strong tidal gain on one side of the course. That’s one of those rare occasions when the lesser of two evils is to suck up the bad air for a bit longer.

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