Upwind Sail Trim

The skipper winning the most races inevitably is going to be the one with the best touch. I call touch the simultaneous coordination of steering and sail trim with wind and sea conditions. Sailing upwind is really a never-ending series…

Many new sailors ask us what “vang sheeting” means. More experienced sailors understand the term, but may not execute it well. We found a video from the International Sailing Academy (ISA) that illustrates the technique on the water. We highly…

If Olympic sailors, coaches, and America’s Cup teams take the time to mark control settings, why shouldn’t the rest of us do the same? We don’t need to overdo it – just a few key marks will help us get…

Are you a newer racing sailor? If so, sailing fast upwind may be one of the toughest things to learn. This post captures a virtual clinic with several newer sailors at the Lake Beulah Yacht Club. We focused the clinic…

Boats with only a mainsail (no jib), sometimes called cat-rigged boats, sail upwind with their boom further out than boats with jibs. Most of these main-only boats use “boom over the corner” as an initial trim reference. (The corner refers…

As a beginning sailor, your editor had to learn to sheet the mainsail hard enough to control the leech and point. So it was hard for me to understand the phrase “When in doubt, let it out.” Vaughan Harrison shows…