Here comes the BOOM (Vang)!
To take full advantage of the wind on a sailboat, you must adjust your sails. I am finding out that getting just the right sail shape is kind of an art form. You have many things to use to adjust the sail - The Halyard (puts the sail up and down), The Cunningham (pulls the front of the boom down and puts tension on the front part of the sail, known as the Luff), the Outhaul (pulls the sail towards the end of the boom, and puts tension on the bottom of the sail, known as the foot), the Main sheet (controls the angle of the main sail to the wind, the traveler (provides more control on the angle of the sail to the wind), and the boom vang (controls the tension on the trailing edge of the sail, known as the leech) I did not have a boom vang, so my sail shapes were not what then needed to be. I did have a topping lift, but in my book it was pretty useless when you had strong winds, because although it could lift the boom up, it could not pull it down. Fortunately, Garhauer Marine had