I should probably just shut up as ALL of my experience is with a standard rig and in winds under 18 knots and also in a racing configuration we always sail with a 150-155 jib and full main. When the wind pipes up and we are unable to change out the headsails we just dump the main and let the jib power the boat. If we can change out the headsail the vast majority of the boats will change to a 135-140 and keep the full main in place. Again just dump the main and let the headsail power the boat. This is a Chesapeake Bay set up where we rarely experience more than 20 other than in storms and they are usually short lived. We were out tonight racing (a 4.6 mile course that was roughly w/l and non-spin class) and I was very aware of the "2 fingers" thing and with our 153 we had up and full main, I was easily able to control the boat on both upwind and down legs with just 2 fingers. I never once called for an ease on the main, but several times asked for trim. Granted the only other C27 and really our only competition in this PHRF series sailed the wrong course and sailed by the first windward mark so we were kind of taking it easy, but we still sail pretty hard so the competition wasn't as much a factor as making the boat go as fast as possible. In fact we overtook several boats in the PHRF class that started 5 minutes ahead of us and when I tallied the whole PHRF non spin boats we would have beat a bunch of much larger boats on handicap. And I haven't cleaned my bottom in over 4 weeks in the hot Chesapeake summer so the slime must be considerable. The bottom will be clean next week even though we are ahead by 7 points (3-10) in the class with 2 races to go. Chris D toy box eastport, md
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