FJ tacks and gybes

9/5 practice notes:
Yesterday was a productive day. Being productive is fairly easy in perfect conditions, and we managed to nail that. Hooray us.

Most skippers way oversteer into the FJ tacks in flat water. The boat loses almost no momentum as you turn into the tack in flat water so you don't have to steer fast. Steering into the tack more gently gains windward distance relative to a quicker tack, and allows a good roll and fast exit from the tack.

There is NO preroll in an FJ tack, except in very light air if you are trying to cheat. So there is no preroll in an FJ tack. The skipper's body movement is to slide your butt aft enough to point both knees forward as you turn the boat into the wind, and then give a good solid upper body roll as the jib backs (most were doing this roll way too early yesterday - the best FJ crews will nearly universally say that in light and medium air the roll happens as the jib backs enough to hit the mast, which is way later than most of you are used to rolling), and then cross and flatten.

Crews need to work on footwork in the tacks, as a lot of people got hung up in the straps. It is no crime to look at your feet during every tack for a day to learn what they are doing and how they are interacting with the boat. Your tacks won't be the best during this process but we are investing in learning here. You will be better after this process.

In a proper light/medium wind to wing FJ gybe, the hardest part is not spinning out to windward on the new gybe. If everything is done right in the first steps, it's going to be easy to spin out. But if you manage to avoid spinning out, your gybes will be awesome.

Step 1 is "we're gybing." The crew takes the jib sheet from the skipper and KEEPS THE JIB FLYING. #1 mistake yesterday was everyone just dropped the jib in the beginning of the gybe. That's slow. Board goes some of the way down. Less in an FJ than in a 420, more on this in a later post.

Step 2 is a very very (very) small steer into the gybe, while the crew shifts weight to windward and the full jib helps steer the boat down. Windward heel and a full jib make steering almost unnecessary. The boom is flipped over and the skipper crosses and immediately goes to a pretty aggressive "weight out" position as you turn the boat fairly hard downwind. THIS IS THE MOST RUDDER MOVEMENT OF THE GYBE but it's still not huge. The crew also helps to get the boat heeling to windward as soon as the boom switches sides. You have to get used to the feeling that you are going to spin down into a death roll - that is the correct feeling, you just don't actually do the death roll part.

As the boat is turning down, the crew is already gybing the jib with a very hard pull of the sheet through the block, after which the skipper takes the sheet to wing the jib, board goes back up, and you are off and running.

Other notes:
Most people have too much vang most of the time. Your vang should be slack in pre-start, unless you have an excellent reason otherwise. If you head down with the vang on, you accelerate. Most of the time you are heading down in pre-start, you are trying to pivot to protect your hole. Accelerating screws that up completely.

There is a reason that I will encourage you to sail backward every day. It is not just for show. Boat control on the starting line is VERY IMPORTANT, being able to back the boat is a big part of that but also one of the most effective start line boat position moves is being able to head the boat down from nearly head to wind to close hauled by simply pushing your boom out hard once, quickly. It's a tough move to master, almost no people truly get it (I had it nailed for about 3 years and now don't practice anywhere close to enough so I stink at it), and sailing backward is THE key step in learning it.