Bull Sails. Sailmakers

28 Jul 2009 Australian Sailing April 2009 IN THE 1987 America’s Cup hosted in Perth, Australia IV tested and developed a ‘secret weapon’ called a gennaker. As the name implies it was a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker, to be used on the reaching legs of the Olympic triangle courses. It had limited success but was innovative enough to send the other syndicates into hasty development programs.This sail was probably the first true attempt at a modern asymmetric spinnaker for keelboats. Today they are commonplace on every type and style of sailing boat from dinghies to super maxis and even most cruising boats have an asymmetric as their preferred downwind option.Asymmetric spinnakers have actually been around for a long time in Australia and New Zealand in the form of the ‘flatties’ used on skiffs and local dinghy classes like the Sharpies and Vee Jays. But today’s ‘asy’ is a long way removed from those sails. Sailing with asymmetric spinnakers presents a whole new way of sailing down...

Reducing lost time through tacks can shave minutes from your time around the race track - By Tony Bull. We all know that the boat that sails fastest around the race course is invariably the first boat home, but let's look at this from a different angle. The fastest boat can also be categorised as the yacht that sails slower for the least amount of time. During the course of a race we do gybes, dips, peels, tacks, spinnaker hoists and drops. In each of these exercises the boat will be slowed and it would be common for at least 20 or so of these manoeuvres to occur in an average race. If we were to shave three to four seconds on average off these speed reductions then we would be over a minute further advanced on our finishing time and that could lift us a long way up the placings. Dissecting a tackEveryone helps. Tacking a boat is usually a multi-person task (except for single handers); it can directly involve two people on a small day sailer or dinghy through to seven or eight on a...

Taking On Tactics 06 Jul 2009 Australian Sailing February 2009 Life is never dull in the challenging role of tactician, reports Tony Bull. THE ROLE of tactician is arguably one of the most critical on the boat. As the name implies, he or she is responsible for positioning the boat on the course and needs to spend the time constantly analysing the situation and planning how to react to changing circumstances. The tactician is literally the eyes of the boat and enables the helmsman to concentrate solely on driving the boat to its optimum. Pre-race preparationSuccessful tacticians start work well before the race begins. Prior to the event, read the Notice of Race and the Sailing Instructions carefully. On larger boats the navigator can help with a lot of this data assimilation, but the tactician should always be well versed and aware. You don't want to be leading up the second beat trying to find out if you go around the hitch mark this time!Knowledge of the location you are racing an...