Avoid the Pitchpole

For those of you at practice last week we had a good experience with sailing downwind in LOTS of wind and with some waves. A subtle adjustment to keep your bow from burying, leading to the eventual (and dreaded) pitchpole, is to overtrim your mainsail briefly. This shifts the heeling force back some rather than forward and down over the bow, which is what drives your bow under. Obviously sitting back quickly helps as well. Try this little trim technique next time you start to turn into a submarine.