I have used this photo and the next to illustrate an article that stresses just how important proper main leech tension is to good pointing. Some relevant quotes follow: "The real difference is made by mainsail leech tension. Mike McNamara once told me, "You point off your mainsail leech." After nearly 40 years of racing, I was surprised by this, since one instinctively thinks of the jib as creating the pointing. I still am not quite sure why it works, but I do know that it does! ... On our boat, we put on lots of boom vang (North American for "kicker") to keep the mainsail leech tight even when we eased the main out to keep the boat from heeling too much. The rule of thumb is that your top batten should be parallel to the boom. So, you sheet in ... until the top batten is properly aligned with the boom. And if there's more wind than you can hike down, you tension the vang, such that when you ease the mainsheet to spill wind, the upper batten still remains parallel to the boom. The other guys on our cruise were letting their mains twist off too much and we outpointed them to the extent that, three or four times, we ended up so far ahead, that we hove to and had a beer while we waited for them to catch up. All this without our working hard or hiking: the whole difference was mainsail leech tension!! ... in very light winds, the weight of the boom will make the mainsail leech hook to windward, in which case I modify my batten rule to read: top batten parallel to the centre line of the boat, i.e. in drifters, I sail with the boom end out more or less over the corner of the transom, which gets my top batten about parallel to the centre line of the boat ... Above: Notice how my crew (who was sailing my boat that day, 3rd from right) and I (2nd from right, sailing a friend's boat) have very little twist in our mainsail leeches, while Colin (right) is sailing with too little leech tension - either too little mainsheet tension or too little vang tension. And notice how his top batten is nowhere near parallel to his boom." - for full-size pic, click here

"Moments later: Colin (right) has fallen right down into Tom and me (600). Again, notice how our main (600) has a nice even angle to the wind all the way up, and a nice, tight leech (aft edge of the sail). With the vang on good and tight, we can ease for a puff and keep this shape and keep pointing, but look at what happens to the sail (929) that has too little leech tension!!"
Meanwhile, back at the race. In these conditions Mark and Paul, who have tacked to port and are already crossing the fleet with some ease, seem to be perfectly in tune with their boat and have the best speed among North American Wayfarers. They won two races in our Nationals in conditions just like these. - for full-size pic, click here