Telltales of the 2002 Laser Worlds

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Show Seniors' telltales
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Telltale locations are shown with small circular marks. Whenever a competitor used more than one telltale, these telltales are connected to each other with straight lines. The six Laser Standard sail panels are henceforth referred to as "Panel 1" through "Panel 6", numbered from the bottom (foot) towards the top (head) of the sail.

General observations

In the overall diagram showing the telltales used by all 85 Worlds competitors, note that in the sample of 85 competitors, only eight used leech telltales (close to the leech of the sail)! (One leech telltale is shown connected with a broken line, as the competitor, Suomalainen of FIN, does not always use a leech telltale.) Three of these sailors opted to place them away from the leech and on Panel 2 to better check airflow while sailing by the lee (as a set or Port/Starboard telltales). Four opted to have a signle telltale high up and right at the leech of Panel 5, to help with their vang setting. (Note: Not all hulls in the sample had photos showing the upper panels of their sails, and hence, the number of telltales high up may have been underestimated.)

This overall picture also shows that only 17 of the 85 competitors used extra luff telltales, telltales near the luff of the top three sail panels! Almost all comptetitors placed their primary steering telltales on Panel 2, some of them using extra telltales on Panel 3 (the panel with the sail numbers), while only three sailors preferred to place their primary steering telltales on Panel 3.

It should be noted here that many of the 2002 Worlds competitors used no telltales at all on their sails, including Ed Wright (GBR), the 6th place Senior! Some of these guys are so good that they can sail sail without telltales, or even with their eyes closed! Some competitors sufficed with just a single telltale location, including the Champion Robert Scheidt. Of course, for those of us not as good as these hot-shots, telltales are extremely valuable trimming tools, and you should not avoid using them just to "Be like Mike!"

The Seniors

If we consider only the telltales used by the Seniors in the Gold Fleet (26 sails shown) and Silver Fleet (16 sails shown), we can see that except for an occasionally used leech telltale, these younger Senior sailors (under 35 years old) have used no leech telltales! Also note that none of the Silver Fleet competitors (except for one) used any telltales high up in Panels 5 or 6, and only five Gold Fleet competitors have used telltales this high up.

Comparing the Seniors with all competitors (or equivalently, with just the Masters) shows that the areas where they position their telltales occupy a smaller, more restricted area of the sail. Their telltales are generally further aft of the luff compared to the Masters sailors.

Furthermore, the multitude of single, unconnected dots in Panel 2 shows that a large percentage of the Seniors use just a single (steering) telltale, presumably allowing them to keep their heads outside of the boat more of the time.

Top Guns: Is there a pattern we can notice when we look at the top finishers? The diagram to left shows the locations of the telltales of the top 10 finishers. The data on the telltale locations of 5th place Brendan Casey (AUS) is based on his verbal description and not on photographic evidence. They are depicted with question marks inside the telltale marks. For 10th place Roope Suomalainen (FIN), the lower steering telltale locations are based on photographic evidence provided by Roope to drLaser after the event, but the high leech telltale is based on a verbal description, and the competitor noted that he used the leech telltale "when he was not too lazy". This leech telltale is thus shown with a question mark. 6th place Wright of GBR carried no telltales! (I will try to fine-tune the uncertain data over time by contacting these sailors.)

Note that six times World Champion Robert Scheidt (BRA 176015) as well as the 7ht place Swede Birgmark (SWE 176010) have raced with a single steering telltale, with Scheidt's considerably aft of Birgmark's. In contrast, 3rd, 4th and 5th place finishers have raced with three sets of telltales each, while all others have used two diagonally arranged steering telltales, except for Casey (AUS) who had a triangular arrangement. The figure also shows the locations of the two diagonal telltales of the great Ben Ainslie (GBR) in the 2000 Worlds.

Note that there is no consistency in exactly where these top guns prefer fixing their telltales, except we can observe that using two or three sets of telltales as steering telltales in Panel 2 seems to be much more common. The rationale here is, of course, that taking also into account the separation bubble created by the mast, the telltale further forward is used in smoother seas and/or medium-to-strong air, and the telltale further aft which is more forgiving is used for chop and/or light air conditions.

The Masters

A quick look at telltales used by the Masters reveals that their telltales are generally more spread out than the Seniors'. All seven Worlds participants who used leech telltales were these "old geezers." Furthermore, the luff telltales used high up by the Masters are consistently and significantly closer to the luff than those used by any Seniors. Not much difference exists in the locations of any telltales in Panels 3 and 4 between the Masters and the Seniors. In the lower sail panels, the old geezers' telltales are almost always arranged two in tandem along a diagonal and, as also noted above, they are much more spread compared to those of younger sailors, possibly reflecting a long history of diverse and deep beliefs about what works best.

drLaser's telltale system

There exists a significant amount of similarities between the locations of the Laser telltales I have been using since 1990 and those used by the 2002 Worlds competitors. There is also one major difference: I use a system that is known as the Gentry Tufts system for my steering telltales.

Barring this main difference, and comparing the drLaser telltales with the overall cluster of telltale points for all competitors, it is clear that the locations of my current telltales fall almost at the weighted centers of the clusters in Panels 2, 4 and 5.

My telltale in Panel 5 at the top is slighly further aft of the center of gravity of the cluster of telltales in this panel, as this allows me to use this single telltale both for checking how tight my leech is upwind in light air and in reaches, and as a flow direction check (and deathtroll gauge) on the run and/or by the lee.

My set of port/starboard leech telltales in Penel 2 are mounted considerably forward of the leech (in contrast to the generally accepted "big-boat" practice of locating it right at the leech - common also with some Laser Masters sailors). This allows much more precise gauging of the air flows and separations on both surfaces of the sail while sailing by the lee, with the leech acting as the entry edge. In fact, I affix these telltales in the opposite direction, fixed on the leech end and lying towards the luff!

But the most important difference of the drLaser telltale system is the use of the so-called Gentry tufts instead of the standard "2-telltales along a diagonal" or the "3-telltales in a triangle" arrangements used by the Worlds caliber Laser sailors. The "Gentry tufts" system - named after the NASA aeorodynamicist Arvel Gentry who first invented them - is a series of four or five very short telltales mounted in a sequence, right next to each other, starting quite close to the luff, and parallel to the airflow (when double-blocked for upwind work for the lower tufts set; and when reaching for the upper tufts set). A similer three-telltales-in-a-row system was used by Ed Adams in the 2002 Worlds.

The Gentry tufts which measure the size of the separation bubble on the leading edge of the sail and thus allow you to determine exactly how close to luffing versus stalling you are steering, are invaluable for learning how to point well on a Laser. For a full description of how to locate the Gentry tufts on your Laser sail, how to read and interpret them, and other related articles, see "A Truer Tale of Telltales?" in this web site.