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Sheeting in a nacra Or, do we have any discrimination issues??

Since last Olympics I’m assisting the German Sailing Federation, coaching the new multi hull discipline Nacra 17, which is great fun since everything is fresh new and exiting.

Since than of course a lot of the talks are about several issues like; Who takes the helm? How heavy is the sheeting? Why are most boys helming better? Do we need tornado sailors or 49er crews? What’s the optimum weight? How do you deal with the ‘mixed’ thing?

So far lots of these issues have been adressed by most of the teams which I’m coaching, but one thing seemed untouched??? What is your biggest issue for improving your sailing?? I asked again and again. And most of the time it always came back on things like handling the boat around the course, or going fast up- or down wind....which brings us back to: .... Yes you get it. The title of our article, sheeting in a nacra...

Actually presenting it like this is already all wrong, since talking about the aspect of sheeting on itself won’t bring you very far, since it always needs to be related to steering, bodywork, heel of the boat etc. etc.

But I’m not going to act like I know all the answers, for this is a blog and not a bible of sailing. Here are just some thoughts and a story of what happened somewhere sometime.

So sheeting in a nacra seemed heavy and yes checking up at the olympic level, one can see and feel that there’s quite some pull on it. My only question than became: ‘How can some teams while sheeting upwind, manage to work half the amplitude and frequency compared with others, and still be equally fast or even faster? Of course my first thoughts went towards helming since if the sheets aren’t adapting the sails to the differences in app. wind angles and -speeds, something else must do this.

So yeah I started looking the guy (oops, sorry!) or girl in the back.... but than still I can see that yes ok he’s maybe steering a bit more but not that much more compared to the differences in sheeting. So how can this difference in sheeting be explained???

Having a crowd that comes out of many different classes the answers of course related mainly to their last sailed class and naturally the 470 sailor says: ‘You need to drop the mast a bit....and than back up when it goes’. Yeah right...
The next one says: ‘You need to hike harder and rock the boat through the waves!’

No wonder ... an ex-laser sailor. Thank god he changed class, but hiking harder.....
So armed with all good advice we went out again and tried this and that... but no good, or at least not good enough.

Again I posed the question and let the group of nacra sailors sweat on it. The next morning we started with a little work out to get everyone system going and I decided to do some two person stretch exercises...The stretching got more into a little pushing and shoving with each other and I stopped the whole exercise and than it happened.... I invited the strongest boy and the weakest girl to come forward and made them pair up before the whole group. I asked the boy to try and sweep the girls feet while she was walking forward.... of course he got it all wrong but managed to sweep the girl’s both feet away with all the force he had.... Fortunately he knew I was gone hurt him bad if anything went wrong so he galantly cought the girl before it got ugly when she fell.....

Sheeting in a nacra Or, do we have any discrimination issues??

Now it was the girls turn: before they started I gave her the advice to gently sweep only the forward foot the moment before he was going to land it and put his weight on it.

The first try she was to late but after a short eye contact I knew she got it and with the next one she executed the most effective foot sweep I’ve ever seen and the guy landed flat on his side where she wanted him! A brilliant demonstration!
The whole group was laughing and than sat together.

After making the point that correct timing of a small but focussed effort was key why ‘good girls become bad’ the coin finally fell.
‘So what can we take from this to main sheet trimming upwind I asked.
Some boy meant that he needed more bad girls but yes everyone understood that timing things right would be the key.

Training that day was focussed and even though it wasn’t a quick fix, and yes, some trims are more forgiving than others, this was a big step forward and apart from that I can take my girls to the bar now knowing that the can sweep all ugly men of their feet!

Thanks for the lesson my Sensei! Good winds!
Rigo de Nijs