This seemed like an ambitious rig, fling a spinnaker and an asymmetric (I think). am guessing its an effective way to sail dead downwind. It looks very complicated especially for a small crew.
Imagining the number of lines coming back to the cockpit dos my head in.
I think they call that a blooper – probably because of the high probability of comical mistakes.
PS. Nice thread on bloopers, their use, and why you don’t see them much anymore here:
http://tinyurl.com/35qkbfo
Nice. Thanks
PPS. The explanation of how sail area windward of the mast helps prevent death rolls would also explain why you sometimes see Lasers heeled far to windward on downwind legs, I would guess.
How it can be complicated: The crew got up in the morning an all found their yellow team shirts to wear. These guys are geniuses.
Mark, you made it look simple
ODock: Re – lasers in my case it’s cos I am a klutz
Being the guy who took the picture I’ll explain a bit. First, it is called a blooper. Why? I don’t know. It was very common in sailboat racing years ago. This is in a race and this crew puts it up every downwind and are very efficient at it. We owe them 20 seconds a mile for the race handicapping and they are right next to us… good race for them, bad for us =)
That’s quite a crew! Very efficient indded
The sails are so big and high but it wasn’t able to beat the wind’s strength. I bet those guys were still figuring things out for themselves. I wish them luck!!!
That is one great blooper. I really like it a lot. Thanks for posting this.