The Shaw 650 like many sporties, loves to sail downwind, where planing starts in around 10 knots, and anything over 12 knots is kind of a sweet wind strength where you don’t want to turn the corner and come back up wind.
However, like all sporties, you can’t just sail downwind, and the Shaw is fun to sail upwind as well, with a potential target top speed, according to designer Rob Shaw and based on data from the quickest boats, of around 6.7 knots sailing at max VMG upwind. In our experience claims that boats of this sort can semi plane or sail upwind at 8-10 knots tends to only be based on either sailing cracked off (i.e. sailing upwind, but at very wide angles) or supreme optimism.
Typically 6.7 knots is acheived in optimal conditions; strong steady winds, decent crew weight, flat water and good trim settings. Miss any of these, and the speed will start to drop away.
A few aspects of the boat are key to decent speed upwind:
Sailing flat keeps beer from tipping
- sail the boat flat; a little heel is ok, flat is faster, wing in the water or near the water is slow. Flat means constant trim on the main, part of the reason why the Shaw doesn’t provide a cleat, crew using hiking to hold the boat flat and calling wind strength changes. In big winds of 25-35 knots, the main can be on the point of flogging and the jib also eased in the big gusts; flat is more important than power as the boat is so light that it requires little force to move forward; you aren’t pushing a heavy leadmine style sportie upwind, it is light and quick
- sail with crew weight; not always possible, but basically the Shaw loves upwind to have somewhere in the realm of 300kg (660lb) of crew weight which is either 3 fatboys/girls, or 4 normalish people, or 8 super model anorexics who can be stacked like bundles of bamboo on the rail to avoid flying away in the wind. Perhaps. In addition, the crew need to actively hike and the sidedecks of the Shaw provide perhaps the most comfortable hiking position of any of the sporties available in the market (our claim and we are sticking to it) combined with nice easy to use hiking straps. Sailing shorthanded for fun, trapezes or reducing sail area may be quicker than sailing hugely overpowered
flat water: you can’t count on flat water, but the skipper can steer their way upwind avoiding big steep wave faces; tacking in particular it helps to focus on doing that in the flat water available
good trim: sailing upwind the keys according to experts include getting the shape of the sails right; maintaining the right slot between main and jib; keeping the foils working and few sudden movements on the helm. The square top to work properly should be folding away to leeward in the bigger gusts, and this make take a certain amount of vang pressure to acheive. The mast itself should be set with the right amount of prebend to match the luff curve of the main, a tight forestay and with the mast tip able to fall to leeward but tight enough to support the masthead downwind. In modern sails, we now believe the main controls are vang, mainsheet off the bridle, outhaul, jib halyard, jib sheeting position. Using the aramid sails the need to wind out big downhaul is basically not there, and many of the Shaws sail with no adjustments at all to downhaul; the sails are already set right on the luff and this minimises the need for downhaul adjustment. Basically as wind strength increases, the sail can be optimised in two modes; to flatten or to encourage it to twist away. Practising determines where the wind strengths and wave conditions decide which one to do. Trim should be to get slight weather helm as the boat heels. In terms of boat speed, the skipper must be
Shaw 650 trim doesn't require a backstay or even other boat's runners
careful not to pinch upwind, as a lightweight boat with narrow foils will stall and then start going sideways; best to develop boat speed then be constantly sailing the boat for speed first then angle in a series of scallops to windward depending on water state. Also key is to avoid big helm movements. Rig tension increases as wind strength increases, but this can be somewhat a set and forget on a daily perspective, given the huge differences in speed that can be acheived by simply hiking harder, ongoing trim and steering to maintain speed.
The Shaw 650 is a great boat upwind and the production design is optimised in layout to ensure the main sheet trimmer can adjust main and vang together, while all 4 crew (or 8 supermodels) can hike hard in comfort.