Twist: The Big Question
When asked to help out onboard, I’m sometimes surprised to find how many skippers only have a vague notion of how much twist to allow, or encourage, in the mainsail. Close hauled or close reaching, twist is controlled on a yacht fitted with a mainsheet traveler largely by mainsheet tension. In this mode, the sheet is pulling fairly well up-and-down the leech, and it has better leverage than the vang. Heave down on the sheet until the top batten is more or less parallel with the boom, and that’s a good starting point for twist. Obviously, a full-length batten like the one illustrated will have curvature, but by imagining a straight line joining the two ends of the batten, you won’t go far wrong. Once twist is established, the sail is trimmed by using the traveler. When a close reach becomes a beam reach and the traveler no longer extends far enough outboard to trim the sail, the sheet must be eased. From this point, the vang maintains leech tension. On sophisticated boats, cranking the vang hard when close hauled will also alter the shape of the leech, but the main thing is to get your head right under the boom and squint up at that batten. From there, you can start fine-tweaking with leech telltales if you like, but the batten trick is the trump card every time.
Make a Note
You don’t want the boatyard’s crane slings passing this close to a delicate through-hull fitting, or even, heaven protect us, an exposed propeller shaft. If you’re likely to be hauling out somewhere where the crane man hasn’t seen a boat like yours before, it really pays to know where the slings should go. Some people actually mark their hulls with “slings here” stickers. I don’t use these because my best crane points happen to be conveniently sited one stanchion forward from the pushpit and one stanchion abaft the pulpit. It’s noted down in the back of my log book in case I forget, and crane drivers love the reassurance.
This article was originally published in the August/September 2026 issue.
