Unfortunately, there have been a few times where I have not had a great start or sailed a bad first beat and have found myself in deep positions in the fleet. In most cases, I have been able to magically leap up to better positions, but it took some keen tactical thinking to do so. In this year’s 2023 MC Scow Trainwreck regatta, I occasionally found myself in the cheap seats and but was able to claw back into the race. In the final race, I had to comeback from a “wrecked” first beat of my own; I was deep in the teens at the windward mark. Yet, by keeping my head in the game I was able to come back and finish a respectable sixth. Here are some tips to help make comebacks.

Windward Mark Layline Comeback hacks: Don’t overstand! Often boats will sail too far to the right, beyond the starboard layline, and end up reaching into the mark. They have sailed further than they need to. You can make big gains on those overstood boats by not making the same mistake as they did. Try not to get into the starboard tack parade until you are four to six boatlengths from the mark. Do not try to tack onto starboard so close to the mark that you risk getting protested for tacking in the Zone (Rule 18.3). In big, tightly packed fleets, coming into the windward mark near the port tack layline can be a low probability move, but if you are still to leeward enough to find a gap in the traffic, you can make a big gains.

On the other hand, if you end up approaching the windward mark on port and will have to tack inside the zone, here is how you can avoid getting protested for breaking rule 18.3. Instead of tacking in front of or to leeward of a startboard tacker, sail beyond any starboard boat and then tack to windward of them. Yes, you give up one boat, but you will not risk getting pitched. This video that explains rule 18.3.

The only time to overstand is when you are approaching the starboard layline and you see there is a pile up ahead with boats pinching to make the mark. Overstand just enough to have clear air — perhaps a boat length or two — and sail around the slow pileup while you’re still at full speed. Note, if you are rounding the mark from this position you will also be sailing slightly higher as you round the mark. This has an added advantage as it will position you to windward of boat(s) that you can blanket on the run.

Rounding windward mark comeback hacks: If you have clean air as you round the mark/offset, use that pressure to sail lower than the fleet (see photo above). Typically, the pack ahead of you will sail higher as each trailing boat takes a line just higher than the boat ahead. Use this pressure to sail lower, get separation from the boats ahead, and sail less distance. Sail your best VMC/VMG, which is usually lower than the boats sailing in a pack that are trying to get on each other’s wind.

Rounding leeward marks: Of course, do not overstand leeward marks by always sailing your fastest VMG to leeward mark. Make sure to keep jibing to stay on the knocked jibe. Big gains can be made by playing those last shifts while everyone else is just thinking about their rounding.

Stay in phase on the beat: Part of sailing the shortest distance is always being on the favored tack. Identify shifts upwind. Sometimes following everyone is ok if you are on the favored tack and in clear air. Use the fleet ahead of you to read the shifts, watching the angles the lead boats are sailing. Anticipating the shifts can increase your leverage. Being set up to be on the inside of the next shit will pay big dividends. The lead boats are usually tacking on the shifts, watch them and their angles to the mark.

Know when to bang a corner & not (Increased leverage): With persistent shifting conditions or large immediate shifts, it may be ok to hit a side hard to make a big gain. Significant wind increases on one side or the other can be reason to bang a side.

Mark Rounding Tactics

Leeward Mark roundings: You can use mark roundings to make big gains, especially when there is a pack ahead of you. Anticipate the pack and set yourself up to have an inside tight rounding even if you have to slow down…use the pinwheel in front of you to make gains. Whatever happens, don’t get overlapped by inside boats that force you to the outside of the pinwheel. Again, this may necessitate your slowing down to break an overlap. You can pass boats that have bad roundings and gain distance on all the boats going slow from the congested rounding. And, if you find a gap and can make a full speed wide and tight rounding, you will stand a better change of maintaining clear air going upwind. Check out this video of a J/22 making a big gain by anticipating the pin wheel. 

Gate Roundings: If the gates are aligned evenly and there is no favored side, position yourself to round a gate with less traffic. All the boats rounding a crowded gate will be going slower. Sometimes the further downwind gate may be faster even if you sail more distance to get to it or it is not on the side of the course you want to sail on. Getting around a gate with clean air can be a huge part of your comeback.

Sail faster: Sail in clean lanes upwind and down. Upwind, stay away from large packs of boats sailing downwind that will blanket your wind.  

Stay away from packs and do not get in any fighting matches with other boats. 

Look for the puffs upwind and sail to them. Downwind, look for puffs and align yourself under them gybing if needed. It is good to have a crew person look aft when sailing downwind. They can tell you to head up or sail low in order to hook up with a puff coming down the track.

Slow other boats down: Sailing downwind, try to blanket other boats by sailing on their wind.

Perhaps the hardest part of a good comeback is attitude. Don’t give up! Instead of swinging for the fences to try to pass ten boats at once, work on passing one at a time. And, even if you don’t make a miraculous comeback, turn the race into a learning situation. Hopefully, there will be many more races to average out your finish and still do well.

For decades, most top racing boats had great big overlapping headsails, which develop a lot of power as the overlap of the main by the genoa slows the airflow between the two sails. But the big sails clutter the deck with big winches, long genoa tracks and genoa sheets. More recently, modern boats are being designed with cleaner decks and non-overlapping headsails. A simpler deck and smaller jibs come at the price of much less power — especially in light air.

One solution to this power shortage is the jib inhauler, which really started coming into widespread use with high-performance keelboats such as the Mumm 30 and Farr 40. The inhauler is a purchase system that pulls the jib clew inboard and thereby reduces, or narrows, the sail’s sheeting angle.

To better understand how inhaulers affect your sail trim, let’s first review some basic principles. When sailing upwind in normal trim, the jib slows the airflow as it passes the mainsail’s leading edge (luff), which creates the pressure difference (low on the leeward side of the mainsail, high on the weather side) that makes your sails work. As the jib is trimmed closer to the boat’s centerline, the airflow slows even further, deepening the pressure on the leeward side of the main, which is trimmed accordingly, of course, to prevent it from stalling. The result is improved pointing in light air.

Boats with non-overlapping headsails normally have jib tracks that are angled anywhere from 8 to 10 degrees off the centerline of the boat. This angle creates a wide gap, commonly called the “slot,” between the two sails. With a wide slot, the jib is too far away from the mainsail to sufficiently slow the airflow. The inhaluler moves the leech of the genoa closer to the luff of the mainsail reducing the slot (see photo 1 – The inhauler pulls the clew of the jib in over the cabin house as if it was being trimmed to an inboard track).

For maximum efficiency the jib leech must be parallel to the luff of the main. When the air flows off the genoa at an angle of 10 degrees to the centerline, it’s thrusting the boat forward at a wide angle, but not as efficiently as at 8 degrees, or better yet, 7 degrees. Certain boats, such the Farr 40 and the Mumm 30, are designed to sail with the jib set at 7 degrees. To make this happen, the jib clew must be pulled inboard so the top of the jib is twisting open and the bottom is pulled in parallel with the main.

For an inhauler system to work, the jib clew must be at cabin height. If there’s a lot of leech return (when the exit of the sail turns in towards the centerline), inhauling will create excess drag and slow the boat. Remember that the greater the return on the leech, the more it works like an airplane’s flaps during landing—drag causes the airflow to really slow down, and in turn, backwind the main.

It’s helpful to have a small amount of return in light air; the jib will develop just enough power to provide feel to the helm without losing pointing ability. When the boat is up to speed, it’s not necessary to have return; at this point return just creates speed-sapping drag. With a smaller and flatter jib, say a No. 2 or No. 3, inhauling is not necessary because there’s no need to narrow the slot in stronger winds.

Installation and customization

If your boat doesn’t have inhaulers, and it’s something you’d like to experiment with, there are a number of factors to consider: your current sheeting angle, your keel and hull design, your sail plan, and whether you’ll be able to install an inhauler system that works within the constraints of your deck layout.

With regard to sheeting angles, you’ll encounter performance problems if you start sheeting the jib tighter than the boat is designed for. In other words, if you’re pointing at a higher angle and you slow down, the flow over the keel is reduced which may increase the leeway of the boat. If your standard sheeting angle is at 8 to 10 degrees (off your boat’s centerline), then you shouldn’t have problems inhauling an extra degree or two.

When it comes to keel types, a narrow, slender keel with a short chord length can work well with inhaulers. If the keel’s leading edge is fat, the boat will be slow and sluggish, and it will be harder to get up to speed when you are inhaluled.

Inhauling will not be an option if the clew of your jib is lower than the cabin house roof. If it’s high enough, you’ll be able to set up the inhauler at the correct angle. If the clew is lower than the cabin house, then you’ll need to have your sail re-cut to allow you to inhaul.

If you set up an inhauler, it’s critical that it pulls inboard at an angle perpendicular to the sheet. If it is not, it will increase sheet load or leech return. Other issues that need to be addressed are how the system can be worked into the deck layout; it will need strength in some areas, as the loads can be significant. Most inhaulers are set up on the centerline of the boat using a pad eye. As you can see on the picture of Devocean’s (Swan 45) deck layout, the rope is in a 2:1 system that passes through the block and then forward to the pad eye on deck (see Photo 2 In this set up, the inhauler has a 2:1 purchase only because it led back to a cabin top winch. The sheet passes through a small ring instead of a block because the size and weight of a block dinged up the deck as the sheet flogged in the tacks). The pad eye is supported with a backing plate under the deck; this will enable the pad eye to bear the loads being exerted by the inhauler. Having the system come to a central point makes it easier to trim the inhauler evenly on both sides, which is important because you want equal, repeatable settings from tack to tack. Most racing boats lead the inhauler control line through a block on the cabin top and run it aft to a winch or purchase system on the top of the cabin. One of the most basic set ups is a simple 2:1 purchase leading to a 6:1 pulley system from the pad eye, for say a standard 40 footer.

The smaller boats can get away with using a 4:1 purchase that will have a line coming from the clew of the sail leading to the purchase system. On smaller boats, I’ve always used Spectra rope for inhauler systems. On boats larger than 40 feet, Vectron should be used because it will stretch less than Spectra. When building my systems, I’ve always used Harken blocks, but now there are other companies who have built complete systems, one of the best are from Diverse Yacht Services (www.diverseyachts.com).

Putting them to use

One thing I’ve always found when using inhaulers is that the crew and driver need to work more closely as a team; the ability to adjust the inhauler while the driver keeps the boat in a groove is an art. The driver must learn the fine art of pointing high while keeping the boat up to its polars. Certain boats with inhaulers, such as the Swan 45, are difficult to keep in the groove, and constant work by the crew trimming the jib in conjunction with the driver footing and pointing, working the boat through the speed builds and lulls helps the boat stay in the groove.

When trimming using an inhauler, there are certain rules of thumb. When the boat is starved for power, ease the inhauler a little to let the driver foot a little more until he’s up to speed. This means opening up the slot until the boat is back up to speed. If the driver keeps dropping speed, and can’t settle into a groove, move the car forward to round out the foot a little to make him sail lower. This builds power and helps the driver generate speed faster. You will need to ease the jib sheet when you do this to make the leech parallel to the main.

If the boat is not pointing, the foot may be too round, so flatten it a little by taking in on the sheet or easing the car aft. If the boat is going fast, but not pointing, take on a little more inhauler—up to the coach roof. This will be the limit on how much you can adjust the inhauler. Most of the time, if the boat is not in the groove, it has to do with the driver struggling to keep the boat sailing fast. If this is the case, and he is starved for power, the solution is to ease the inhauler. Most of the time it takes constant work by the crew and the driver to the keep the boat moving in the groove. Inhauling is a very efficient way to develop power from non-overlapping head sails.

The free videos will be posted to http://www.uksailmakers.com/learning-videos-and-articles/. The first one is a 3.5-minute video on how to set an outboard lead for better sail shape when jib reaching.

Upcoming videos will cover how to adjust your jib lead position, get proper halyard tension, how to set your traveler properly, spinnaker jibes and douses, how to get your jib trimmed faster in a tack, with more to come.