Poles Apart
29 Jun 2011 Australian Sailing - April/May 2011 Tony Bull looks at the fine-tune controls used to fly a symmetrical spinnaker off a pole . When a complete novice first steps on board a racing yacht, invariably the first response is amazement at the number of sheets and lines that run along the deck and up the mast. They find it hard to comprehend that all these ropes have a role in the sailing of the boat. All top sailors will tell you the difference in the relative speeds of similar craft is the ability to constantly adjust the setup of the boat to counter the wind and wave variations as they are faced. This ability to change gears and keep your boat sailing well through the oscillating conditions is what sets the top boats apart. All these various lines and sheets each have a role to play in these alterations. I see so many boats sail around the course with a very token approach to changing gears. I had a recent experience of doing some two-boat sailing with a couple of ...