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I thought it was time I brought you up to date on the Sabre v Pacer speed comparison.
The conclusion is that in typical inland 6- 10 knot variable breezes, the main difference is caused by crew weight. The top Pacer with an experienced light lady skippering with her young daughter sails around 95kg total weight. In contrast, the three top Sabre skippers sail at the 80kg range.
The Pacer in question easily outpoints the Sabres, and due to weight has the same boat speed. I think the only tune-up solution is loose 15kg!
Paul Fitzwarryne 266
The Sabre only weighs 41 kg and you can easily cartop it upside down over a weekend.
Ideally you should have a roof rack, but I recently drove 1200 km with my daughter’s Sabre upside down on a mattress. There was no problem averaging 100km other than a 10% increase in fuel consumption. Tie for and aft, with rope. and sideways through the car’s rear window or door with webbing if you have it otherwise wrapped rope. Check tightness after 1. 10 and 100km, then every two hours or fuel stop.
The cost would be some $260 in fuel plus one overnight stop. With two drivers sharing it would be straight forward.
Good luck but remember to insure!
Under Rule 42.3 you can accelerate out of of a tack.
Rule 42.3[a] clearly lets you use rolling the boat as a method of steering.
Acceleration is part of roll tacking. You roll to windward as the boat starts slowing down as it approaches head to wind. The second roll to bring the boat upright and sheeting in the sail causes the acceleration by increasing the speed of wind flow across the sail.
The restriction under 42.3 is the speed out of the tack is no greater than your speed if you had not tacked. In practical terms this is only an issue in light winds when boat speed is below theoritical displacement hull speed. This is a secondary reason why the first phase of roll tacking is to foot, say 5 degrees, to pick up speed. It is then more difficult to prove a breach of the rule.
I fully agree with Salty Dog that Alan’s article is excellent. If we all read it and implement his advice he will have real competition next time!
Another trick tried in a certain international class is to chemically etch the inside of the topmast to gat more bend there yet still satisfy the external measurement requirements. The top cms are waxed so the wall thickness looks normal.
Another aspect I have only just noticed is the stiffness of the mast. I have two which are both within class dimensions. However, the one I have been using is the original from 266 and is softer and has more bend when checked against a weight suspended from the hound position. I presume over the 20 years there may have been a variation in the alloy used.
Bing 80+kg I will go with the stiffer one.
Paul Fitzwarryne Sabre 266
Thanks for the information Barry. My observations were generally in the typical 6-12 knot wind range where the Pacers were certainly quicker. I agree with the better performance of the Sabre in heavy winds as I coached the State junior team in Pacers and above 15 knots they were just overpowered.
Out of interest I will have to race a Pacer against a Sabre. The YMCA in Canberra has a fleet of Pacers for juniors, and you can hire a relatively new one for $20 an afternoon. The Pacer is certainly a good boat to train against with a Sabre.
I still wonder about the SA yardstick as their winds are generally strong.
Yes I was overdoing it with some 140kg tension on the forestay. I ended up with some 10mm inversion while trying more I got an inversion in the foredeck! I had shifted the mast step right aft where it was no longer being supported by the bulkhead.
I tried maximum vang to prevent the inversion, when slacked downwind the mast straightened and kept the forestay tight even in a 20 knot breeze. On the wind the sail lacked gust response. End of supertight experiment. As Alan said it is all relative, obviously a Sabre does not need the forstay tension of a dinghy with a jib such as the Mirror.
More notes for my little black book on the trials and tribulations of a new Sabre skipper.
Paul Fitzwarryne Sabre 266.
The best system I have seen was on a Victor Harbor club Sabre which is often sailed in large SA swells.
The system is a rope under the gunwhale from the thwart area to the stem then though a shackle and attached to shock cord back towards the mast. The shock cord keeps ithe rope tight but stretches to a stop knot to give a loose rope when pressure is applied when you grab it after going overboard. This makes it easy to bring the boat upright.
I have tried Alan’s advice on strong rigtension, as the new national champion it must be sound. However, I am having a major problem. When I apply tension, the mast inverts giving significant fullness in the middle of the sail. It is only cured by massive vang tension which at least bends the mast the right way but with a hooked leech. Real deag in light winds.
What am I doing wrong, and what is the solution?
I fully know the prublem of donated boats to the sea scouts. Some years ago, in our innocence we put an advertisement in the local paper asking for any donated boat to be dropped at the scout hut on a Saturday morning. Tewnty three turned up! It was easier for people to drop them there than the rubbish tip. After wild plans to restore most of them reality struck and we kept five.
Based on that experience I recommend you remove all the useable parts and have a bonfire with the rest. The plaque has np value.
Good luck.
In theory, the more the the traveller is let off, the more centered becomes the mainsheet boom block so you can point higher. Thus you would have the traveller tighter in stronger winds resulting in a flatter wider set sail. More power less drag.
With end boom sheeting , like on the Laser, the theory works well in practice.
With centreboom sheeting, especially with a high-set boom, in practice there is no effective difference. The exceptions are when you can have a windward sheeting system like in sports yachts where the traveller car is pulled up to windward on each tack, or in some dinghies like the 505 which developed a ‘loveday’ loop which resulted in the blocks being a minimum distance apart on a rigid loop.
In the case of the Sabre, the practical advantages are minimal. Most top skippers having the traveller out as long as possible in all weathers, with the limit such that when the mainsheet is pulled at maximum tension there is stilll a slight gap between the top and bottom blocks. If is too loose the blocks would jam together before you could fully power up the main. But if you enjoy fiddling go ahead as long as you still have time to think of other minor matters such as windshifts!
l fully support the view of Phillip and Barry. Even with the short mast on a Sabre, with winds under 3 knots you can get toyally different wind direction. The situation is very common on inland waters where there is a significant amount of very localised wind due the the water/land temperature differences. Often the old wind sticks to the surface with the new wind sliding over the top such that you can have a 180 degree difference in direction.
While it is difficult to set your sail for such a difference, ithe knowledge gives you time to get ready for when the new wind creeps down to blow over most of the sail. It is a very miniture version of what happens to winds at the edge of a front, or when the sea breeze kakes over from the previous land breeze. The change happens at an angle not straight vertically due to surface drag.
If you sail in these conditions a mast wind indicator is essential ,but it must be ulrasensitive with minimum friction not a typical cheap flag which needs 5 knots to get a reaction.
Was hoping to race a Sabre this weekend at Cangerra. Unfortunately I have been left to be Race Officer as the YMCA SC could not get one from the cat classes who are on duty- I ran the ACT cat championship when the dinghy classes were on duty!
The question is which of the 6 races in the ACT championship do you want to be the two heats of the NSW Sabre championship? You will be starting in Div 1 for dinghies over 111 YC yardstick. I will give you seperate Sabre race result sheets for your two heats besides the general division results.
For your information the morning heats will be long races with a triangle course, but lighter winds. The afternoon races are two shorer windward leeward courses.
Some options are get your results from
1. the overall results for the six races and double the score;
2. treating each day as as a seperate heat, your heat result is based on the 3 race results; or
3. selecting one race a day as your heat.I have had similar arrangements in the past when Lasers, Tasers and Spirals have had the ACT championship as a NSW heat. At one stage it was always the afternoon race, but the recent trend is to have two shorter races back to back.
As Race Officer I can give you any result you want!
Just let me know when you sign on.
regards Paul Fitzwarryne
The simple test is to trial sail with a whole line of tufts and see where the airflow breaks down, From this you can tune the batterns. Its critical to get the same wind flow in all areas of the sail, not just in the full battern area. Remove the experimental tufts before a race otherwise you never get your hrad out of the boat!
Monosail boats usually need their maximum camber further aft then those where the jib affects the upwind airflow. However, some underpowered classes such as the 420 try to get the maximum camber well aft so the sail has a very tight leach to give maximal power and not worry so much about drag.
Remember the flatter the entry for a given camber the more critical is perfect sail trim. The performance grove is much smaller so while better for an expert is too difficult for the average club sailer.
If you get poor performance with 40%, stick wirth the results and to hell with the theory!
I use the following settings for sidestays measured on a Loos Model A for 2.4 mm 1×19 wire
wind- knots
condition
scale
tension – kg
8
underpowered
20
91
12
optimal
22
104
20 plus
overpowered
25
113 after max downhaul tension appliedThe concept is to keep slight tension on the leeward shroud going to windward.
Replicate the tension by datum marking the forestay tensioning cord.
