You can have the best design in the world, but.........

I was sailing at Emsworth Slipper Lake last night and had a big lesson in poor rig set up. It was a curious evening with our launch area some 5 minutes from the racing area. From my view point conditions were light and fluky so after I launched my boat, saw too much kicker and too little twist in the jib. Once tweaked the setup was perfect for the light shifty conditions where we launched. Unfortunately the race area, some few minutes walk down the sea wall had 5 to 8 MPH of wind. Too little kicker and too much jib twist meant I had not chance of decent performance upwind and spent the first 5 races getting hammered by the fleet. I thought there would be a break after four races however there was none so I ducked out of one race to tweak the boat. Bit more mast bend to flatten the main, more kicker and slightly less jib twist. What a difference, easily winning the last 4 races sailing higher then the rest of the fleet upwind.

The point is, setting you rig up well is the biggest single factor to generating boat speed. If you are struggling to get it right, rig up next to one of your local experts and copy them. I did just this when I first sailed a DF 95 in my first TT race at manor park. The boat was straight out of the box and never been on the water, but by rigging next to Craig Richards and copying what he did gave me instant performance with a final result slotting me in second between Craig and John Tushingham.