When you start radio sailing, quite quickly you notice the amount of attention that competitors pay to trimming and tuning their rigs.

Does it make a difference? Well, in our recent IOM meeting which was using six-leg courses, the leaders were finishing in around 12 minutes a whole leg in front of the competitors at the back. So setting God-like tactics, skill and good-looks to one side for the moment, superficially they are going about 15% faster. Amazing.

Confounding matters, the top competitors seem to do rig set-up by eye – no measuring rules or tape measures or anything. Sometimes you’ll see two or three fingers being thrust in a gap in the rigs. Baffling….. So where do you start??

I started radio sailing a little last year with a borrowed Britpop with BG sails. It’s a very popular combination. There is a public download on tuning and trimming from BG Sails.

Click to access bg_sails_rig_tuning_iom.pdf

Take a look at this tuning guide. It’s a cracking good read. In fact, take a look at the whole “Tips” section of the BG website.

Tomorrow, I’ll publish part 2 of this item – a pocket trimming tool ….