By Ruedi Moser , who has won the European Championships twice crewing for his brother Eric, and was second in the 1994 World Championships crewing for Urs Schaer. 

 

Crewing is often believed to be easy compared to helming. NOT TRUE! If you want to be a perfect crew, especially in a trapeze boat such as the Fireball, you have to get out and train.

But all the training in the world is of little use when you are hindered by poor equipment. The most important item for a Fireball crew is a comfortable trapeze harness. This should support the back, not put stress on it which a badly designed one will do. You have to make sure it's the right size; make sure you don't choose one which is too big. In the shops you will often find only the larger sizes to suit the fatter non-Fireball sailor. All straps should be adjustable, and the hook should be about navel height. Your body will then be balanced when on the wire. The most comfortable sort is one where the hook bar extends as far as the hip bone and relieves the pressure on the pelvis. Make sure that there isn't too much padding (especially cotton wool type). Although this looks very comfortable, it can take in a lot of water and become excessively heavy. Foam is very efficient, although at first it can be a bit stiff, but this quickly improves with use. It is essential to try it out by hanging from something Before you buy it's also worth considering if you are going to wear your lifejacket under or over the harness. Many people put the lifejacket under the harness for additional padding. But I had a problem with the shoulder straps slipping, so I prefer to wear the lifejacket on top. This means the lifejacket has to be short enough not to get in the way of the trapeze hook, and one with straps is preferable to one with a zip. 

An important detail is the pulley system used to adjust the trapeze wire. To hold the rope, I use a Clamcleat CL230 which is very reliable, without ever getting my finger trapped in it. When pulled right upwards, my backside is just about a hand's width above the deck. This gives me ease of movement in light winds, making it easy to swing in and out. In the lowest position, the hook is about a hand's width below the edge of the deck. I have the trapeze handle right above the pulley system. 

SAILING ADVICE

When going out on the wire, always push out with the front leg first, or you can easily fall forwards. The centreboard case makes an ideal springboard.

Adjust your height so you can get out as far as possible. You should practise adjusting your height while still stretched out; it is actually possible to do this without having to get hold of the trapeze handle.

When fully out on the wire, your front leg should be fully stretched (including your foot), and the back leg slightly relaxed.

When you feel secure on the trapeze, move your feet as close together as possible. If you can, stand on your tip-toes. This acts as a shock absorber and you will find it easier to balance.

When you are on the wire your body will be affected by a changing set of forces. You need to understand what these are and how to react to them. Practise swinging in and out quickly, without shaking or banging the boat. Move back and forward along the boat without losing your balance. Then try to co-ordinate your movement with the waves. The more relaxed you are, the better your reactions will be and you'll get tired far less easily.

Your aim should be to keep the boat completely upright. So you should stay stretched out until the hull is completely flat. (The side of the hull will disturb the water).

An important point is the co-ordination between crew and helm. One common problem is when they both over-react, both leaning in or out too far or working against each other. Only through sailing together as much as possible can you get used to each other and learn to trust each other.

Concentrate your weight in the middle of the boat. When it's windier, you may both feel more secure if you can lean against each other. 

Your aim should be to keep the boat completely upright. So you should stay stretched out until the hull is completely flat. (The side of the hull will disturb the water).

An important point is the co-ordination between crew and helm. One common problem is when they both over-react, both leaning in or out too far or working against each other. Only through sailing together as much as possible can you get used to each other and learn to trust each other.

Concentrate your weight in the middle of the boat. When it's windier, you may both feel more secure if you can lean against each other. 

Rig Set-up for Light-weight Crews by Chris Payne reprinted from the Australian Newsletter Sept 1994 

Lightweight setup

Heather and I have a combined crew weight of about 130 kilos with about 75 kilos on the wire.This is certainly fairly light in Fireball terms and although there can be some advantages, we have had to adapt our rig and sails to try to optimise our heavy air sailing, so that we can be competitive right through the range. So far we have been moderately successful but we still have weaknesses in this area. 

Sails

All our sails come from Lindsay Irwin and we have been very pleased with these. Our spinnaker is fairly small, but very stable and is based on the English style of spinnaker. With this spinnaker we are fast on all points of downwind sailing and we were frequently able to make up 50 to 100 metres on a downwind leg in South Africa. Our mainsail is also based on the English mains and is flatter then the Cliffo in the middle but a bit fuller in the head and foot. This means we need to pull the strut forward to flatten the bottom. We keep the strut forward from very light and further up the wind range than other people, but this gives us more power downwind. The jib is a standard Irwin-Australian style jib which is really easier to, and more importantly for me, is easy to set. 

Rig

We use a Proctor Stratos 11 etched which is slightly softer than the standard Proctor Stratos 11 and was a development for the new Proctor Cumulus which is now available in the UK. We have it set up with a spreader length of 385 mm (Measured from the wall of the mast to the outside of the wire). Liz and Mark Rushall (2nd 1993 Worlds) went as far as 375 mm but we were not adventurous enough to try that. We have standardised setting up the mast with a prebend of about 45mm at our most upright rake. The table below shows some of the settings we go through with our rakes etc. These are not to be taken as definitive but as a guideline as we will use our feel to determine when to change gears:- We also have adjustable spreaders which are really useful in the light European conditions, enabling us to flatten our sails and still keep the main twisted. We now have an adjustable strop in the centre of the boat for all mast rakes. All these fittings are probably not necessary and no World Champion has had these type of adjustments, but I feel as a light weight that it is important to be able to depower the rig quickly as the wind picks up. 

Settings 

Wind strength  Rake  Spreader  Strut   C/B  Jib sheeting 

0-4  22'9-1/2"  max aft  max fwd  straight   9 in 

5-10  22'9-1/2"  max aft   max fwd  fwd 6-8"  9 in 

11-12  22'9-1/2"  max aft  max fwd  straight  10 in 

13-15  22'7"   max fwd  neutral  15 degrees  11 in 

16-18   22'4"  max fwd  fwd 5mm  30-45 degrees   12 in 

19-20  22'4"  max fwd  fwd 10-25mm  30-45 degrees  14 in 

21-25  22'0-1/2"  max fwd  fwd 25mm  30-45 degrees   14 in 

25+  22'0-1/2  max aft  fwd 25mm  30 degrees  14 in 

For an explanation of some of these measurements 

Mast rake

We use a rope halyard which we tie to the tape measure and pull all the way to the top and measure to the top of the transom. 

Strut

We have a traveller for the mast strut on the mast and the above measurements are for the movement of the car up the track. Neutral is the position the traveller would sit with full rig tension, no vang and spreaders forward. We have a neutral position for each mast rake, but as you can tell from the above table we tend to keep the traveller in the same place as we rake the mast back. 

Jib sheeting

We measure the jib sheeting from the centreline of the boat to where the jib sets inline with the mast. We sheet the jib as high as we can, up to 10 knots and then we start lowering it to keep the top tuft setting and the correct fullness for the waves. 

Fittings

We have a cascading block and tackle system on the side stay which enables us to change our mast rake during racing, and we feel this is pretty important to be able to reduce power in the rig quickly when the wind picks up. Ian Pinnel (current world champion) just drops rig tension but he carries more crew weight than we do. Being able to adjust the mast rake quickly enables us to be a bit more radical in the rakes that we use and is pretty useful for smaller crews.