Analysis of a tuning session

When I sailed dinghies it was great to get in a motor boat and follow you own boat to see how it looked and how the rig was working. That wasn't so easy in radio sailing until now. Iain May and his team have developed a camera cat which is producing some wonderful footage of One Metres. Here is a segment of the footage with the camera cat following my boat at Gosport. One person is in charge of driving the boat and the other in charge of the stabilised camera on it.

Enjoy and then take a look at what it taught me. Remember I am still learning how to get the best out of my VISS.

Conditions were light to medium A rig albeit shifty.

It is fascinating to be able to study the boat in so much detail.

My initial observations are:

1. Sheeting jib angle could move out a few degrees

2. The jib attachment point can go forward to allow the jib leech to work a little in the puffs to help with acceleration

3. Perhaps the jib leech could have been eased a fraction more. You can see the backwinding in the main in the gusts which must slow the boat.

4. I think I need slacker shrouds in these conditions to let the mast work in the puffs. It all looks nice but a bit rigid. When i tested the tension after racing I was on max tension

5. The main boom could be more central

6. I need to work the sheets harder, I.e ease in a puff.

I am only talking about tiny changes above but believe they will make a significant difference.

One other observation was that the extra freeboard caused by the high decks on the VISS does not go in the water. I always wondered if the bulges would dip but the video proves they don't. That's a clever design.

The camera cat in action

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