Laser EPS tips and tricks

Here is a couple of things I found out over the years. Some are evident, some perhaps not. If you have things to contribute from your experience, let me know!

· In very light winds, the top of the mainsail gets too full as a result of the large roach which puts the top batten under compression. This can cause a large flow separation (stall) in the upper part of the sail. Of course you can flatten the sail by tightening the vang; but that closes the leech, takes out the twist and thus makes it worse in light conditions. The alternative is to use the cunningham to bend the upper part of the mast, thus flattening the upper part of the sail without reducing twist. Use leech telltales to see if it works.

· Running downwind you often sit on your knees for a long time. Therefore, you definitely need knee pads. But you probably found out already.

· If the wind gets strong, one of the first problems can be tacking. If not done properly, you can end up 'in irons' i.e. head to wind. The cause is, I think, the full battens: as soon as these move over to the other side, the end of the battens points upwind, closes the leech and makes the boat head up again. It helps a lot to ease the vang a bit for the tack, and use enough cunningham. Then the leech can open, even while the sail is not yet fully loaded.

· And if it still goes wrong and you end up head to wind: once your boat moves backwards, use the rudder to turn it to one side; lift the centreboard a bit, heel to windward if you can, and try to get underway again.

· A mast can be overloaded if you keep the vang on while bearing off quickly. E.g. if you get at the windward mark with the vang tight on, do not forget to ease it a bit prior to rounding the mark. Very large forces can act on the rig during bearing off (which you notice from the very strong acceleration) and for standard Lasers this is when top masts break. For the EPS the same might happen, and the mast is too precious to risk that.

· The dreaded "death roll" to windward on a run can be caused by the different angle that the top of the mainsail makes due to the twist; so a gust hitting the top of the sail pushes the mast over to windward. By using some vang you limit the amount of twist, and thereby the risk of a swim.

· Of course you never capsize. But suppose you would ... to get back into the boat, there would be two options I think:

o between the front end of the wings and the shrouds. This is narrow but it is possible to slide in, grabbing the toestrap or so;

o over the transom (windward side). Actually that seems made for it. Pull yourself in after grabbing the toestrap and perhaps the wing.

· In case you make a deathroll and capsize: good chance that the boom is pointing up into the air and the sail is still catching wind. In case you wonder what to do with it: there is a special device for this. It is called 'mainsheet'. Just in case you forget at that chaotic moment...

· The wings have drain holes. After a longer capsize, a wing may actually have filled with water, causing some very unpredictable behaviour of the boat... I do not know whether this is intentional to prevent a capsized EPS from floating too high, but if you want you can always tape it off.