Is strong downhaul always recomended?

joethewindsufa · Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 1190 Location: Montréal

once one has made a decision on downhaul setting
how many people come in and re-adjust after trial run(s) ??
outhaul is SO much easier to adjust on the water
however, i do agree that there is a DH range - min to max !!!

jingebritsen · Joined: 21 Aug 2002 Posts: 3371

tuning is an ongoing thing:

sails stretch

conditions vary

board/sail/mast/fin combo's vary

understanding how to get the most out of gear takes lots of trial and error.

techno900 · Joined: 28 Mar 2001 Posts: 4161

Joe said:

DanWeiss · Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 2296 Location: Connecticut, USA

I bet nearly every intermediate and up sailor could notice 2cm of adjustment if the sail is within 2cm of optimum anyway. 2cm down the mast is a huge change in tension. 2cm at the cleat really depends on whether the sail was tuned properly from the beginning.

Gusty conditions generally favor precise rather than haphazard tuning anyway. That's the entire point of tuning; get the sail tension right for the power changes. Steady conditions don't demand the same reaction from the sail so a bad tune will feel constant enough -if still rather poor.

When I managed an inland lake shop, my efforts to help tune the sails of everyone really paid off. They went from getting a few planing chances in the gusts to linking gusts together more and more. The smiles of everyone increased commensurately with the targeted tuning.

cgoudie1 · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 11:18 am Post subject:

That would be me. After one reach across the river, if I've misjudged
the conditions, and I'm not satisfied with the sail handling, I get out
on the other side and adjust the downhaul. Usually after that it's
outhaul adjustment, but you really need to get that downhaul set correctly
1st. If you don't, trying to adjust with just the outhaul will make your sail
really unstable.

-Craig

isobars · Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 20935

Yup. That's why I tune my DH on the stout side of nominal before I launch.
That way it remains stable and is good for anything short of needing to rig down by 30-40% yet sacrifices virtually nothing, and I could back off the DH at midriver if necessary. (I've never found it necessary.) I got no "other shore" where I usually sail, so dry land is a 10-minute round trip across a wind shadow. I'd rather WS.

One freestyler trick is to ALWAYS tune the sail EXACTLY the same regardless of conditions. That way the sail ALWAYS responds EXACTLY the same when being thrown around, removing sail response vagaries from the challenge. KISS and cope.

techno900 · Joined: 28 Mar 2001 Posts: 4161

Danweiss said:

swchandler · Joined: 08 Nov 1993 Posts: 10588

There are always some folks that always make a huge project out of rigging and tuning. They're always fiddling around. It's almost like they're aimlessly wandering trying to find their way to satisfaction. They never get it right the first time, so they're quickly back on the beach to make this adjustment or that one. It's a bad habit to get into, and it takes away your sailing time. Sure, it takes a bit of experimentation to flush out and characterize a new sail, particularly since they will stretch a bit when new. Yet, once you understand the downhaul requirements of a sail, the fiddling around should be done. After that it's all about tweaking the outhaul to match the conditions. Why make things more complex and daunting than they need to be?

cgoudie1 · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:02 pm Post subject:

Amen,

I tend to run a little higher downhaul (like Mike), so that I can adjust on
the water if there's no convenient beach (unlike Mike I've done it on the water), but the right thing to do is rig it so that it looks right. In 5 to 20
(nasty conditions) I'd probably rig a beer, but if I hadn't been sailing for
a few days, (and presuming the average wind was somewhere around
17.5) I'd put up a bigger board, a 5.7 and minimal flop. I know what
the sail should look like in these (or any other conditions). It's when
the dang conditions change right when I hit the water, that I might adjust
the downhaul after a reach.

I'm not much into dweebing on the beach (as Steve can attest if he remembers back to when we were sailing out of the same launch years ago). I adjust to maximize my time on the water, not because I like
to adjust. A bad DH adjustment can get really tiring really fast.

-Craig

p.s. 2cms (almost an inch) of DH on my Northwaves makes a perceptable difference in how floppy they look, and how they feel.