Chris Brittain, a Dragon crew of over ten years with two Edinburgh Cup wins, outlines the basic crew manoeuvres. He covers releasing the headsail at the right moment in the tack (roll-tacking in light air, pulling rather than winching in a breeze), freeing the leeward barber hauler before the hoist and setting the pole 12–18 inches off the forestay when it is blowing. He describes the foredeck’s position and the pole and barber-hauler sequence for reaching and running gybes, keeping weight forward on the run, retrieving the spinnaker into the chute, and treating the cockpit as four corners. […]
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A tongue-in-cheek questionnaire from the Crews Union for crew weighing up an offer to sail with a particular helmsman. Twenty categories – from the boat, sails, running rigging and trailer to antifouling, starts, windward-mark roundings, rules, mooring pick-ups, repairs and the bar – each have four answers ranging from a) ideal to d) disastrous. A scoring section explains what mostly a), b), c) or d) answers mean for the season ahead, from Crews Union ‘approved’ to blacklisted. It is a humour piece, though it doubles as a checklist of what a well-run Dragon campaign looks like. […]
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Two crew-work tips. When tacking with the winchless genoa system, the front crew should ease and re-take the fine tune while the middleman handles the coarse genoa sheet, so nobody crosses the cockpit and weight distribution helps the boat accelerate. Downwind, heel the boat to weather with the front crew next to the mast and the middleman on the side deck so the helm can see; the frontman holds the spinnaker downhaul so the pole can come back when surfing while the middleman eases the sheet. Steer to follow the spinnaker, as kite surfers do, rather than holding a steady course and trimming the kite to it. […]
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Martin ‘Stavros’ Payne sets out the sequence of small rig and trim changes that keep a Dragon at speed as conditions change. When over-powered: release the mast ram to bend the mast at deck level, add runner to open both leeches and harden the forestay, trim both sails in, then drop the traveller to keep the boom on the centre-line; in chop do the reverse with runner, sheets and traveller and bear away rather than pinch. He then breaks down the perfect tack (small tiller push, genoa not un-cleated until the boom crosses the centre-line, tiller centred as the boom crosses) and a smooth gybe with the boat heeled to windward and a course change of only 5–10 degrees. […]
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A question-and-answer guide from North Sails covering the whole boat: crew weight and roles, rig controls, upwind and downwind trim, and boat handling. It explains why forestay length is the first rig setting, recommends cascade purchases over winches for the runners, and describes the barber-hauler and fine-tune genoa sheeting. Runner tension is presented as the main gear-change upwind, and the boat-handling section gives step-by-step tips for starts, tacks, gybes and drop-in-cockpit spinnaker takedowns. […]
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