Novices begin sail trim with the mainsail. More advanced sailors start sail trim from the most forward sail on the boat. For a typical Bermuda Sloop, the most common rig today, that means the jib or foresail. We will also introduce sailing by the tell-tales—the little pieces of green and red yarn, cloth or ribbon hanging in about the middle of the sail. To begin, we put our boat on a steady course and while on that course we sheet the sail to the “all the way in” position. At this point, the “inside” tell-tales, those closest to the centerline of the boat, should be pointing straight back in line with the motion of the boat and parallel to the water, while the outside tell-tales will be flopping about. To properly trim our headsail, we will ease the sail slowly out. Eventually, the tell-tale movement will change with the inside tell-tales flopping about and the outside tell-tales flowing back in a straight line parallel with the water. When you have reached this point, stop easing the sail and gently (and slowly) trim in until both sets of tell-tales are streaming aft. This is the ideal trim position. One final note on headsails, many will have several sets of tell-tales and it can be difficult to get all sets streaming aft simultaneously. For our purposes, we will trim to the bottom set of tell-tales when there are two sets and to the middle set when there are three sets of tell-tales.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the mainsail. We will still use just our mainsheet for trimming our mainsail at this point, continuing to avoid adjustment of the boom vang and traveler car. We will center our traveler car amid ship and leave it there. At this point, with the headsail already trimmed, you are likely to see a big “bubble” along the luff of our mainsail where the headsail has turned the wind into our mainsail if the mainsail is trimmed out. The goal of mainsail trim is to get the mainsail tell-tales, located on the leach of the sail, usually along the battens, to stream back parallel to the water. The procedure is similar to headsail trim above: start with the mainsail all the way in and gradually ease the sail out until the tell-tales are streaming aft. As with the headsail, they may all not stream aft simultaneously. Try moving in and out—slowly—if you still can’t get them all flowing, concentrate on the tell-tales from mid-sail to the top of the sail—that is where you will find the strongest wind.

Lastly, let me point out that there are conditions such as very light winds, wet sails, heading dead down wind, etc., when the tell-tale trim method may not work. When you are sailing in these conditions, my advice would be return to simpler rules of trim until you are ready for the advanced trim methods.

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!

Let’s start our trim lessons with the mainsail. First, let’s simplify the sail controls. For now we will leave the main traveler centered on the boat and the boom vang in one position. All our mainsail trim, then, will be with the mainsheet. For our purposes, we will assign three and only three possible sail trim positions for the mainsail. The first is “all the way in” with the boom at the center line of the boat. The second trim position is “all the way out” with the boom as far out as it will go before the mainsail is against the spreader. The final position is “half-way”; midway between the two extreme positions. Those positions are easy to understand and to execute using just the mainsheet. The only question remaining is when to use each position. We’ll use three rules to determine which trim position to use: – Rule One: use the “all the way in” position when you are sailing close-hauled. – Rule Two: use the “all the way out position” when you are sailing lower than a beam reach (i.e. broad reach or running). – Rule Three: use the “half way” position all the rest of the time (i.e. close reach and beam reach).

That’s all there is to it. No constant tweaking or adjusting. Just set once and sail. Using just these three positions and setting the sails just once will keep your boat moving at good clip and allow you to have fun while sailing!

With our mainsail trimmed, now let’s turn our attention to the foresail. We’ll use just two rules to get our foresail into a reasonable trim position. – Rule One: the curve of the foresail should be parallel to the mainsail. This rule does not require precision—just get it close. With just a little practice you will get quite close – just be sighting between the two sails. – Rule two is even easier: when you take the mainsail out, take the foresail out too. Conversely, when you pull the mainsail in, sheet in the foresail too. How far, you ask? Just follow Rule One—simple!!

Using the above procedure, the beginning sailor can sail reasonably efficiently by setting both sails just once for each point of sail. This takes a great deal of mystery out of sail trim and allows for significantly more enjoyment on the water.