Continuation of Racing to Win by Steve Milby
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Light air Racing

There are few sailing skills that are more difficult to learn than light air sailing. Anyone who knows how to sail can sail in 10-15 knot winds. But, when the wind is only strong enough to fill your sails intermittently, you have to know specific techniques that you can use to keep the boat moving. 
It is not the purpose of this article to cover the most basic principles of light air sail trimming. For those fundamentals, get some good sailing and racing books, and read the sections on light air sailing. Bill Holcomb’s article will be helpful here, too.

Generally, in light air, ease all your sail trimming and tensioning devices and make the sails as full as possible. When sailing to windward, you should point high in the puffs and bear off in the lulls. When sailing downwind, you should steer downwind in the puffs and broad reach in the lulls.

Boat Preparation

You can’t race well with a boat that is incapable of reaching its maximum speed. This is especially true when sailing in light air, because when the underwater surfaces are rough, or covered with barnacles or slime, the boat won't coast very far in the lulls. When you repaint the bottom of your boat, you have to smoothly sand the bottom, rudder and keel, fair the keel if necessary, and apply a good coat of bottom paint that works well in your sailing venue. Wherever you race, you should get in the water regularly throughout the racing season and scrub it all clean.

Finding the Wind and Playing the Puffs

Watch for wind puffs coming down the water. One way to "see" wind puffs is to look for ripples on the water surface. Another good way is to watch other boats that are ahead, behind and near you, regardless of whether they are racing or just daysailing, and see what is happening to them. If you see their sails fill and they start to heel more, you know they're in a puff.

Recently, I was running downwind in a dying puff a few hundred yards from the finish line, and looked to my left and saw a competitor coming from behind with his sails straining in a new, strong puff. I broad reached over and got into the leading edge of the puff, turned downwind wing-and-wing and roared down to the finish line ahead of the other boat. If I had stayed where I was, the other boat would have beaten me to the finish line.

In light air, the wind might come down the water in irregularly-shaped patches, or it might come down the water in narrow strips. If you see a boat that is 20-30 yards to one side of you and going faster than you, don't just assume that her skipper is better than you, and don’t just sit there and watch her go by. Move over closer to that boat, because there is a very good chance that she is sailing in a narrow strip of wind that is stronger than the wind that you are in. If you can get your boat into the edge of that strip of wind, you might be able to maintain your lead over the other boat.

Look at flags and trees near the shore, and anything else that gives you a clue as to what the wind is doing. There are indicators out there that can tell you what you need to know, and the more you look, the more you see. Watch the smoke rising from the tip of a lighted cigarette or cigar, or a piece of smoldering punk. 

Try to sail from one wind puff to another. Whenever possible, avoid an area where the surface of the water is smooth and glassy, because you are likely to be becalmed. You can’t predict with certainty where the next puff will be, but you can improve your chances of being in its vicinity. You can win yacht races not only by outsailing your opponents, but also by putting your boat in a position that will increase the likelihood that you will be the recipient of good luck. As a general rule, try to stay near the middle of the course, so that, if the next puff of wind comes down the left or right side of the racecourse, you can get to it. If you sail into a puff along one side of the racecourse, try to stay on the side of the puff nearest the center of the racecourse.

Be the First to Get the New Wind

Whenever possible, position your boat in the area where the next puff is most likely to come from. Puffs usually come from the same direction as the wind. If, for example, the wind is blowing from east to west, the puffs will usually come out of the east. In that case, stay generally on the east side of the racecourse, so that you are the first to get the new wind. 

When you are reaching, the puffs usually come from upwind. In light air, the windward boats get the puffs first, and can ride them longer. Moreover, when you are reaching, puffs often dissipate before they get to the downwind boats, because of the turbulence caused by the sails of the windward boats, and also because that is just the nature of wind puffs in light air. Therefore, you should generally sail high in light air on a reaching leg of the course. Bear off slightly in the puffs, and reach up slightly in the lulls, keeping in mind that you don’t want to stray too far from the rhumb line on the reaching leg.

When you are running downwind, the puffs usually come from astern. For that reason, the downwind leg of the racecourse often presents good opportunities for boats to overtake the leaders. Watch for puffs coming from astern, and steer your boat into the leading edge of the puff. If possible, blanket the sails of the boats ahead of you, so that, while you are riding a strong puff downwind, you are depriving your opponents of the benefits of that same strong puff. 

In light air, the puffs tend to be weak, small in size and short-lived. In such circumstances it is usually unwise to go very far to chase a puff, because it will likely fizzle out before you get there. To add insult to injury, when you finally get to the dying puff, you might very well see a new, healthy puff develop in the area that you just abandoned. In stronger winds, puffs are usually more powerful, larger in size and longer-lasting, and it might be more worthwhile to travel farther in pursuit of a puff. 

When you find a puff, remember that the strongest wind is usually found at the leading edge of the puff. Steer your course so that you will enter the puff at the leading edge, and keep the boat in the puff as long as possible so that you will maximize your progress downwind. When a puff arrives, steer downwind, wing-and-wing. When the puff dissipates, start broad reaching to keep the boat moving. 

Look along the shore for little localized patches or strips of wind. Many times, I have found strips of strong wind 100 yards wide and a mile long that ran parallel to a shoreline, when there was hardly any wind elsewhere.

Boat Balance

When sailing in light air, whether beating, reaching, or running, carry extra crew, and have your crew seated on the lee rail, to induce the boat to heel slightly to leeward. When the boat stands upright in light air, your sails often hang limp, like a sheet on a clothesline, and sails that hang like that can’t drive the boat. When the boat heels, the weight of the sailcloth makes the sails hang in the curved shape that drives the boat. When the sails hang in that shape, any air that moves over the surface of the sails will drive the boat. The benefit that you will gain by having your sails continuously driving the boat will far outweigh the detriment caused by the weight of all those crewmembers.

When you are using crew weight to induce the boat to heel in this manner, instruct your crew to sit very still, and not change their position without asking the skipper's permission. In these light air conditions the balance of the boat is very delicate, and if the crew shifts its weight, the sails will spill their air, and the boom might gybe unintentionally. By putting the crew's weight on the lee rail, you induce the boat to heel slightly to leeward. When the boat heels, the outboard end of the boom dips closer toward the water, and gravity prevents the boom from gybing.

Last summer I was crewing for a friend on his Etchell. We were reaching in wind so light that the sails were hanging limp and we were virtually becalmed. Without saying anything, I went forward, trying not to set the boat rocking, and stood astride the leeward shroud, holding onto the shroud and leaning back slightly. As the boat heeled, the sails hung in their curved shape, and the boat began to accelerate across the flat surface of the water. The next time you find yourself sailing in those conditions, try it, and you will be amazed at how much difference it makes to heel the boat a few degrees.

Those of you who singlehand your boats might think that your lack of crew prevents you from heeling your boat in light air in this manner. However, I have set my Tiller Tamer during light air races, gone forward to the leeward shroud and heeled the boat, letting the Tiller Tamer hold her on course. 

You should heel your boat in light air for a number of reasons besides maintaining sail shape. In light air it is important to reduce wetted surface. Waterline length detracts from boat speed in light air. Increased waterline length means the boat will have more wetted surface, and that means the boat will suffer more from drag. Reducing wetted surface is the best way to reduce drag when sailing in light air. Your objective is to distribute your movable ballast (crew) so that the boat is floating on the most cylindrical, rather than elliptical, sections of the hull. This generally means heeling the boat over to leeward and trimming down in the bow. This is usually best done by getting your crew's weight clustered near the leeward shrouds and, in flat water, even forward of the shrouds. Avoid moving the helm as much as possible, because a turned rudder offers a lot more resistance than one that is close to neutral. That being said, heeling your boat over will give the boat a little weather helm and some helmsmen prefer having a bit of 'feel' in the light stuff.

Even small gains in speed in light air are important as they produce more apparent wind and allow you to sail from puff to puff and ideally to avoid the big holes. In the really light stuff, tacking or jibing can kill your speed, and it can take a huge amount of time to regain the lost speed and the lost apparent wind. You often need to power up after the tacks and then reshape the sails as the boat achieves more speed. 

Two Case Studies on Light air Racing

After a race, I like to analyze any unusual situation that occurred, regardless of whether I was successful, because I can often figure out the reasons why it turned out as it did. By Monday-morning quarterbacking your own performance, you can either confirm the correctness of your actions, or identify alternative strategies that you can use in the future.

Case No. 1

Recently, I was leading a small group of boats that were heading for the finish line, which, in this race, was set downwind on a windward-leeward racecourse. The wind was very light, and, in order to keep our boats moving, we were all broad-reaching on port tack on a course that would take us high of the finish line, requiring that we jibe and then broad reach on starboard tack across the finish line. I saw a small, but rather strong wind puff coming down the lake and overtaking the boats behind me from astern. They began to accelerate. The wind puff did not reach me yet, and I had visions of the other boats blasting past me before I could get up to speed. In anticipation of the puff, I steered my boat further downwind, straight for the finish line, flopped my boom over the port side of the boat, and waited for the wind to arrive. When the wind arrived, it filled and strained my sails, and we headed straight for the finish line, sailing wing-and-wing. The other boats were still broad reaching on port tack, on a course high of the finish line, and they were moving faster than me, but they had to cover much more distance to cross the finish line. By sailing straight at the finish line on a puff, we were able to accelerate to a good speed, had a shorter distance to cover and easily beat them across the finish line. 

This illustrates three principles. First, when sailing downwind, remember the general principle that you should head downwind in the puffs and broad reach in the lulls. Where your boat is barely moving on a broad reach, a weak puff will not be enough to enable you to head downwind. The puff had to be strong enough to fill the sails and accelerate the boat downwind, and to keep her moving across the finish line. If the puff had been a weak one, then we would have been better off by continuing to broad reach, in the hope that we could hold off the approaching boats.

Secondly, never become irrevocably committed to a plan. When circumstances change on the racecourse, don’t hesitate to change your tactics and to take maximum advantage of the new circumstances. After I changed course and jibed my mainsail, I was surprised that none of the other boats followed suit. If I were them, I would have altered course when I was directly upwind of the lead boat, in the hope that my wung-out sails would blanket the lead boat, enabling me to gain time on her, and perhaps pass her before the finish line. Had they all spread their sails across the course to windward of me, I would have been hard put to find enough wind to get to the finish line.

Third, the strongest wind is usually found at the leading edge of a puff. Therefore, if you are broad reaching downwind in light air, and you see a puff coming down the water towards you, head downwind and adjust your sails for the new downwind course before the puff arrives, so that, when the puff arrives, your sails will already be spread out to catch the wind, and you will be able to gain the most benefit from the strong wind at the leading edge of the puff.

Case No. 2

In another recent race, we were sailing a windward-leeward racecourse. The wind was coming from astern and intermittently, down the right side, the left side and the middle of the lake, in small, localized puffs. In light and shifting winds, I was alternately broad reaching and running downwind toward the finish line. An S-2 7.9 rode a strong wind puff down the lake and overtook us from behind. As he approached, he got on my wind and kept me from accelerating on the leading edge of the wind puff. When he went by, I reached to the right, across his stern, to get my wind clear and to gain speed, and then I steered downwind, setting my sails wing-and-wing, and rode the puff until it almost disappeared. When I crossed his stern, the S-2 broad reached over toward the left side of the lake, gybed, and then started broad reaching back. When my puff finally died, I saw that another puff was overtaking the S-2 from astern, so I broad reached over toward him to get in on it. When the new puff got to us, my boat was about 40 yards ahead of the S-2, and I steered downwind, wung out my sails, and beat him across the finish line. 

The move that put us 40 yards ahead of the S-2 was when I crossed his stern to get clear air, and headed downwind, wung out on the last of the puff. While he was reaching off toward the left side of the lake, he was sailing at an acute angle to the finish line. He was not getting significantly closer to it. He took a long zig and zag to keep broad reaching in the light air. As a result, he traveled a much greater distance than I did, and he sailed out of the puff that he had been in. While we were sailing downwind on the last of the dying puff, it seemed dreadfully slow, but we were constantly closing on the finish line, and traveling the shortest possible distance to get there. By the time my puff died, and I reached over toward the S-2 to get into his new puff, our courses had converged, so I didn’t have to reach very far to get into the new puff, to make my turn downwind and to make my run for the finish line.

When the S-2 started to broad reach to the left side of the lake, I could see that he would have to broad reach back at least once, and perhaps twice, to get in position to cross the finish line. Therefore, I knew that, if he continued to broad reach, he was going to travel a long distance to get there. Even though my puff was starting to die, it still kept us headed on a short course toward the finish line. So, I held the slow, downwind, direct course toward the finish line as long as I could. Also, by sailing downwind, we were headed for the middle of the finish line. From our central position, we could easily get into the next wind puff that came down the lake, regardless of whether it came from the left side, the right side, or down the middle of the lake. When I saw the S-2 reaching back toward me, and saw the puff descending on him, I knew that was the favorable time to reach across for a short distance, to get in on the puff and ride it to the finish line.

Broad reaching downwind is something that you should only be doing in the very lightest of winds. Twice recently I improved my finishing time by running downwind on fairly weak puffs, while others were broad reaching.

There were other reasons why I steered across the stern and to the right of the S-2 after it overtook my boat. That move put my boat on the starboard side and to leeward of the S-2, and from that position I could have broad reached across the lake on port tack with the S-2. If I could gain an overlap, I would have had the right to take the S-2 up to windward, away from the finish line. Relative to the S-2, my boat would have come closer to the finish line. Forcing the S-2 to windward in that manner could have given me a 1-2 boat-length advantage over the S-2. After taking the S-2 up to windward, I could have fallen off the wind, and then jibed over onto the starboard tack, and broad reached across the finish line. 

Also, when I steered across the S-2’s stern, after he had just overtaken me from behind and blanketed my sails, he undoubtedly thought that I intended to give him payback by blanketing his sails. In order to get clear of me, he broad reached to the left, instead of running downwind on the puff. Thus, by steering across his stern, I forced him to make a hasty decision and to take defensive action. Decisions that are made in haste and under duress are often wrong. In this case, the S-2 failed to stay in the puff and use it to the greatest advantage. He actually sailed out of the puff and into a lull, allowing me to use the remaining puff to my greatest advantage. 

Racing is like playing chess in the sense that you should try to plan your game two or three moves in advance, you should give yourself as many alternatives as possible, and if you bluff or feint your opponent, he will often act defensively, to keep clear of you, instead of making the most of the present situation. Because you cannot accurately predict wind shifts and other variable factors, you should put your boat in a position that keeps you within reach of any favorable wind shifts or puffs that might come along.