SAILING SKILLS Changing gear: Downwind

Sailing downwind quickly requires you to constantly ‘change gear’ - a combination of steering, trimming sails and adjusting crew position to make the most of short- and long-term changes in the conditions.

Here, I’ll once again use the example of two boats from the Rushall fleet: the light and agile RS200, and the somewhat heavier and mature Honeybee, Ragdoll: a 4 1/2-ton long-keeled boat built in the 1960s. The principles we’ll discuss apply to the full range of sailing craft, but every boat and rig has its own specifics. If you are serious about the practise of ‘getting there quickly’ I’d encourage you to practise sailing your boat in different modes to get a feel for fast techniques in every condition. Whatever your boat, you’ll almost certainly get there quicker than the autopilot!

Finding the sweet spot

For every boat and every condition, there is a ‘sweet spot’: a wind angle that maximises downwind VMG (progress made in the downwind direction). A keelboat racer has target boatspeed and wind angles for each wind speed to hand to give helm and trimmers something to aim at. Those of us