Just catching up on some net mothing and read that lots of peeps are going for the adjustable wand for waves. I am not sure I understand how it works….
As I understand it, the only time you are in serious trouble is if the waves are bigger than your main foil.. At this stage if does not matter what length your wand is at, you are swimming as soon as you make a mistake.
Also, by winding down the ride height you ride lower and therefore neutral is further back too. Personally I do not like sailing with my wand out the water at any time, I feel very outta control and stop concentrating on sailing and start worrying about my good looks. With a shorter wand, doesn’t that mean you spend more time with the wand out the water??
In my thinking, by the time you need to shorten your wand to go downwind, its going to be a question of who capsizes less is going to do better so isn’t it better to practice technique instead of hoping the boat is going to save you?
Shortening the wand effectively increases the gearing, giving you more control. Conversely, dropping the wand back with the bias (dial) makes this worse, so even if you are lower the wand is less effective…
hmmm interesting. My wand moves so quickly that it does not really make mcuh difference with the gearing. Also, on the mach two with the gearing on the front you have quite a lot of control, granted not on the fly, but if it was that wavey i dont think i would have time to be adjusting the wand length on the move…??
Ok, at least now I understand the theory behind it.
I can see how it works and in extreme conditons it will make it easier to get home I guess. Its like putting an F1 car in “safe” mode but its easy to put so much stuff on the boat that the Dither Witch will get you. Leave it all off and keep your head out of the boat. Its much faster.
Am not planning on having one, I think if i can manage Dubai waves there are not too many places that I am going to have major probs.
As I said in my blog the main reason for me getting an adjustable wand was because of what I witnessed one afternoon from a rib with Mike Lennon’s shorter wand downwind keeping the boat much more in control in chop. Of course, technique is vital as well but learning how to do it is incredibly painful and you definitely get the feeling you are fighting the machine and a design deficiency within it. Whilst I agree that education through pain is very effective, sorting the boat out is possibly the better way forward.
design deficiency…… somebody call Amac quick!
. I think I understand the theory now, which is what I wanted to find out.
Wouldn’t you get the same effect by increasing the wand elastic tension? This is system Amac and JP run. Yes wouldn’t change gearing, but guessing theory is you can make the wand hence flap react faster to the chop by increasing the rreturn tension or spring rate. Anyway, fast flap movement is so 2009……
I still cannot understand how it really changes the gearing that much…. as the mach two axle is fixed unless you change it on the beach… no one likes a slow working wand!!!
The wand tip is moving more for a given change of height. As the boat goes up, the wand wants to swing more to counter it…