To be a Winner , go and lose.

“ Would you like me to give you a formula for success?....

........It's quite simple, really........ Double your rate of failure ..."

Thomas J. Watson – Founder of IBM

cont.... " You're thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all... you can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you'll find success. On the far side.” –

Fast Horse, Slow horse and The Crack of the Whip

The fast horse on the race course.--- they have had a lot of training-courses, read the books, they have the budget for boat and sails and they get crew and "management consultants" to get them results. Then they go to the nationals and bang, they hit a wall ...they fail....they do mediocre. Mid fleet with some low, low discards.

There is a lot of blame storming.. the crew feel marginalised, and scape goated. What was irritation and disappointment on day one, becomes frustration and depression at the end of the week. The owner and his no.1 spend a lot of time talking abruptly to each other. They distance themselves from the crew. They change crew positions mid week. They bring onboard more "management consultants". There is no debreif, no rogues council....just a washing down.

The crew feel like factory workers at a strategy reveiw presentaiton,....uninvolved and under threat.

When the boat gets back out either on the latter days of the regatta or back home on wednsday nights, they start barging in at marks and misbehaving at the starts, rolling small er boats with little margin for error if the wee man luffs as he should.


Now comes the slow horse

The slow horse has felt the crack of the whip. However they are determined not to feel that again and learn to try harder, run faster. They enlist help from all sources- the quiet guy oin the bow, the best race officers, the old salts in the club,....why they even call the national champion in the class once they have some meaningful quesitons.

What was earlier a boat met with derision and sarc'y comments is now earning some respect as an up and comer. It attracts their own management consultants, but these are held at arms legnth.

The slow horse will make it's own mistakes, do turns gracefully, start again or start late....but they will learn what "felt" wrong, what "looked wrong"


One day the slow horse goes to their second nationals and pisses on the other boats from their own clubs, and get visited by helms from the top 10. THe crew mingle wiht the better boats and the fast horses look on jealously from their mid fleet, OCS, and DSQ results.