© Dave Reed

Puffs2

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On a windy day, especially as you fight your way off the starting line in close quarters, you can hear the calls from the talking heads of your nearest competitors: "Puff in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . followed by a lull and two steep waves." Getting this kind of input back to the helmsman is critical, not just at the start, but all around the racecourse, because as you know, huge gains can be made by taking advantage of puffs and lulls, both large and small.

It’s important as a crew to communicate what’s happening with the wind, and do so with confidence. To call a puff effectively, you need to recognize one, determine its size, estimate how strong it is, and figure out what direction it’s moving. But before I go any further, let me stress that it’s just as important to call the lulls preceding or following a puff.

Remember, a puff is simply an increase in breeze—big or small. When I’m calling puffs to the helmsman, I refer to them as fan puffs or directional puffs. A fan puff is the leading edge of a gust, a mass of air dropping from aloft and fanning out from its center of impact as more air piles on top of it. A directional puff is essentially the remnants of the fan puff, overcoming the initial surface contact and moving in the direction of the upper air mass from which it came.

The initial puff is always a fan puff. Its appearance is generally darker and more solid than a directional puff, and it will appear on the water as an expanding oval. After a short period, the puff stops spreading as the air overcomes the initial surface resistance and moves in the same general direction—now it’s a directional puff. Puffs will come from the prevailing wind direction, so figuring out where they’re coming from is a matter of scanning the area to weather to see where they originate. Watch to see if a puff is expanding to the sides: if it’s still expanding, it’s still fanning. If it’s just moving straight, it’s a directional.

	Stuart Streuli
	Where sailing small boats in light air, or big boats in a breeze, the ability to detect puffs and windshifts and pass that information to your skipper is vital.

You’ll commonly hear people refer to "lifting puffs" and "heading puffs," which is simply a matter of which side of the puff you’re engaging. You can determine this by the direction from which the puff approaches. If it’s coming from aft of about 60 degrees to your course it’s a lift, forward of that to 45 degrees it’s the median, and forward of 45 degrees it’s a header.

Determining how soon it will hit, and thus the countdown, is a matter of figuring out how fast it’s moving over the water. You can count down aloud by how fast you see it coming. If you start counting faster, the helmsman knows it’s coming faster with more pressure; if you slow your count it’s coming slower with less pressure.

What about the lulls? The lulls will appear ahead of and behind the puffs, and it’s important to let the driver know whether a lull is less or more than the pre-puff velocity. Their shapes and lengths are difficult to determine, so I don’t really try. I look for the next change on the water and try to guess how long it will take to get to it. Simply calling out the lull gives the helm and trimmers the opportunity to change gears. The lulls are going to last until the next puff hits, so the best thing to do is start looking for the next puff.