Dinghy technique: balance, hiking and roll tacks.

The five essentials

A widely cited checklist for dinghy sailing is the "five essentials": boat balance, centreboard position, course made good, sail trim, and boat trim (fore and aft weight). The version we found is a secondary source (Wikipedia), which cites an archived RYA document.

Centreboard position

The US Coast Guard Auxiliary gives the basic pattern:

Skip Dieball of North Sails adds a heavy-air adjustment for upwind: keep the board fully down in light to moderate wind, and raise it gradually as the wind builds to reduce weather helm.

Hiking

In a dinghy, hiking (leaning out over the windward side) is how you keep the boat flat. Dieball calls hard hiking the most reliable way to do it. Loe and Smith, writing in Sailing World in 2009, measured different hiking styles and reported:

• Legs-out beats legs-in. Legs-out hiking produced more righting torque than any legs-in style they tested.
• Flat matters most. Hiking does the most good when the boat is nearly flat, because as the boat heels less of your weight acts on the lever arm.
• Pain is not the measure. More discomfort does not mean more effect. They recommend the posture that keeps the boat flat while still letting you trim and keep a lookout.
• Depower before you burn out. They found depowering to flatten the boat can work better than exhausting the crew. See reefing and depowering.

Check your class rules. Some classes restrict hiking posture; Loe and Smith give the J/22 as an example, where your bottom must stay in contact with the rail.

Roll tacks

A roll tack uses body weight to heel the boat into the turn and then flatten it, with the aim of cutting the time the sail has no power. ILCA published a breakdown of the Laser roll tack by SportVid coaches that divides a single-handed roll tack into entry, middle and exit:

• Light wind: wait a little before crossing the boat so it heels further, then flatten it to accelerate.
• Strong wind: avoid heeling and cross quickly.
• Common error: moving your body forward as you duck under the boom. Shifting weight back first makes the crossing easier.

In two-person dinghies such as the 420 and FJ, WindCheck Magazine describes the skipper heeling the boat slightly to leeward to start the turn, with the crew's roll and flatten driving the acceleration out. Teams often count it down with a "3-2-1-roll" call to time it.

The general tacking principles still apply: US Sailing says the aim is to carry speed through the tack, not to turn as fast as possible. See tacking and gybing.

What the racing rules allow

Rolling a boat is legal in some ways and not others. Under the Racing Rules of Sailing:

• Rule 42.3(a) allows a boat to be rolled to help it steer.
• Rule 42.3(b) allows exaggerated rolling in a tack or gybe only if the boat is not going faster just after the maneuver than it would have been without it.

The full rules are on racing rules.

Where to learn it

The RYA's youth Stage 2 covers sailing a course including tacking, gybing and boat speed control, and Stage 4 covers sailing a double-hander as helm or crew. Its adult Level 3 is Better Sailing, and it lists Performance Sailing and Sailing with Spinnakers among its advanced dinghy courses. The RYA says you need Level 2 or Stage 3 to start racing. Capsize principles are on capsize recovery. Dinghy types are on dinghies, and clothing on dinghy clothing.