For those of you that are striving to improve your performance on the water here are some tips I originally wrote up on the Forum on setting sail angles. These tips were written in the days before sailing gestures to control sail postion became popular, but the principles do now change.

1. When sailing a Tako strive to hit 40 wind angle and 20 sheet angles on your tacks. While the theoretical fastest point of sailing is with the wind at 35 degrees (or -35 degrees), this number can be hard to hit on a tack. If you try to tack to 35 but hit 30 instead you will immediately begin to lose speed because you are “too close to the wind” and will be “luffing” or “spilling air”. If, however, you strive to tack to 40 and miss it by 5 then you are still good at 35. Give yourself room for error. If you hit 40 then you can always “head up” (turn towards the wind) a bit to come to 35 if needed.2. When preparing to tack set your SHEET ANGLE to 20. Then tack to 40. This way you will not have to tweak you sheet angle after the tack. Trying to tweak the sheet angle in the moments after you tack to 40 will waste valuable time and spill valuable air.3. Watch your SHEET (the line that determines the angle of your boom) ANGLE rather than your wind angle. Set the sheet angle and the sail angle will follow.