Sailing II

Sailing II

The MIT sailing pavillion has Techs as single-handed boats and double-handed FJs.




After years of sailing single-handed boats, today I tried the FJ. My crew was someone who had only sailed the FJ once; yesterday! But we did relatively well when practicing tacking and timing ourselves at the start line, in preparation for the Chix Only team race in the end of July. What I really liked was the feeling of a very light rudder. Especially since the Tech's and the Rhodes' rudders feel very stiff and heavy, the experience came as a positive surprise. However, it seems that we are a light-weight combination. Today there was no wind whatsoever, but at times both of us were sitting up and I would hike!!

The weird part about this boat is that the main is really small: only 6 sq.meters. Compare with the Europe which is single-handed and has a sail area of 7 sq.meters and the equivalent double 420 with main area of ~10 sq.meters. What we really need to find out before the race is how does the crew hike out and whether they wear a waist harness that attaches to a trapeze (I read in wiki that it should exist, but I didn't see it today). A clear difference with the international FJ is the lack of spinnaker. I'm not sure if this has to do with the fact that we're racing in the Charles river, where raising a spinnaker would take more time than crossing the river with the spinnaker on.

In any case, the preparation is going well. Next time we need to hike, tack, jibe and prepare for the start line!