Sail trim can be one of the great mysteries of effectively sailing a vessel propelled solely by the wind. Ask someone who has been on a racing vessel, or even just watched a racing yacht, and you are likely to hear how much work sailing is or how the sails need constant adjustment. This view is really incorrect—sail trim can be as difficult or as simple as you want to make it. While it may be true that a racing sail boat trying to achieve every last tenth of knot of boat speed does require a fair amount of sail trim adjustment, that is certainly not true for the typical day sailor out for a pleasurable afternoon or even for a cruiser making a passage. In these situations, it is not uncommon to set the sails (and the autopilot for that matter), sit back and enjoy the day, the water, the boat and your sailing companions. This article describes for the beginner a simple method of sail trim that can be used to effectively and safely sail a boat on any point of sail without lots of trim work (subsequent articles will address more sophisticated methods of trim that also do not require a lot of work).
To start, you must know your points of sail. The sail trim techniques described here are based on your boat’s relative position to the wind, in other words, your point of sail. Next, we will also assume that at a beginning level you won’t be sailing in strong wind, so for now we won’t discuss techniques to use when the rig is overpowered. We’ll assume you are sailing in light to moderate winds for your boat. We’ll follow a very simple procedure—set the mainsail to a predetermined position and then set the foresail so it is parallel to the mainsail. Done!
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