HOW TO BE A GREAT CREW
Crewing is often considered to be not as important as the helming role – the perception is that you can just jump in and go. In the early days of your crewing career this might be the case, but a great crew will contribute equally to the speed, decision-making and outcome of their team’s racing. There are myriad aspects to this, from the personal to the practical. Over the next few pages I focus on one of the basics that is often ignored – going faster in a straight line upwind. I hope you find a few ideas to try on whatever boat you sail.
BOAT SET-UP
There will be loads of information on the internet about how to set up your boat, and most sailmakers will have a set-up guide for their brand which is the starting point. If you can’t find anything, ask the more experienced sailors in the fleet. It’s really important to get the basic onshore settings right and create a system, so that you can change between settings while on the water.
With a permanent marker, mark where you are pulling the jib halyard to, record what shroud pin number you are on and make a calibration system for your jibsheet – this is the only way to create a repeatable tuning guide.
Measure things before you sail and then when you come in. Keep a record of the conditions and how you were going, to build up your own tuning guide. For more detail I’d recommend Tuning to Win [by Ian Pinnell, Fernhurst].
UPWIND SPEED
Jib set-up
Even though the jib is the small relation to the mainsail, it makes a large contribution to your performance upwind. As the
