On Winding in Those Boat Lengths Up the Fleet

On reflection I think I have been incredibly lucky in sailing on a whole range of  boats:  some 'dog boats', put it simply losers, other periods with winners and also with  much time spent with eager improvers.

This has given me a real spectrum of experience and also a huge insight into the team psychology, individual's motivation and helms-men's or tacticians' egos over the years since I began sailing in earnest in 1992-93. There are many different formulas for success but a boat has to want to LEARN as a start point in order to winch in those boat lengths to the better boats.

Many crew spend their entire career on just one or a couple of boats, and most of those boats remain at the level they started at more or less, when we are talking one design at least. That is a great shame because the helm and erstwhile tactician never really get feedback from crew who would know any better!

There is a lot of theorising and "bad luck today" , "if only we had......" but very little progress up the fleet and that I have blogged on before BTW. Often in a one design fleet relative new comers will soon be passing them! This is due to the lack of open mindedness, and the fact that they make the same mistakes over and over again for a few simple reasons on top of this.

So here is a fresh take on moving on up the fleet from me, with some comparisons between good boats and the "dogs" who never learn. This is once again from the "on the water" point of view because I hate plebs who always start with a great monologue about boat and mental preparation. Let's get to the meat of the dinner here out on the bloody water:

1) Pre start- as I have said before, good boats nearly all measure the wind, the line, the course if it does not bisect the line, they sail up the beat measuring on the way and the same with the kite up on the test run, confirming the course bias if any, the wind bends and any shift pattern. This is admittedly beyond basic sailing and racing, but dog boats do little, turn up late often or just give lip service to wind angles.

Another really bad thing dog boats do is charging up and down the start line, or the opposite ( which I am really bad at in dinghies) plodding around far too far back from the line with 1 min 30 to go.

There is often a reason for this and this is the start itself is something than terrorises them, or torments them with angst:

2) Start: the sprint is when you go over the start line people. Not the finish line and not even 30 seconds to the start. It is the one boat length each side of the line which is the sprint when you give all. If you get your neck out infront of the next man then you will stand a very good chance of holding them behind you.

Linking to pre-start, dog boats get bad positioning for the line, and this is down to a pure lack of Cajones very often. They are not ballsy enough to mix it in and are not confident enough in the rules. They seem to not be in-the-know about the usual "pick a lane, any lane" game plan which pans out between 1 minute out and the gun.   (or 30 seconds depending on boat and conditions )

I sail at the moment as crew with a really ballsy helm who shows no fear and although he does make the mistake of reaching in on port at vast speed often (planing sometimes in the Melges 24) , he is more confident than I am at placing his boat in the right lane, getting out if needs be and keeping speed on when possible.

Also he is not very afraid of OCS: this is another mental inhibition I have and many sailors do also have. In one design you can pretty much just book a slot and keep to a bow from the guy next to you and you are off on time.

The start is the place where a mid to back fleet boat who know the rules inside out, can really make progress on reeling in those places up the fleet. We were lucky to sail with Big Neil McGregor in the sigma 33 championships 1996 when our starts and the boat stripped out of all non legally needed gubbins took us from  mid bottom fleet as we would have been, to top of the middle with a 5th place one day out of 78 boats. That my friends, that was progress like I have never seen again actually!!

If you have read this far, then you know the score: if there is line bias you need to use it, and otherwise you need to come off faster than the boat to lee and windward, and bang on time pardon the pun. A good transit and a confident communication, signalling route to the helm from the bowman are a good start point in a boat over 26 feet long.

Otherwise it is really about position, and trying to go for the 'best' start near the IDM on a stb bias (committee end) line once in a while: then you will also be messing up some of the best boat's placings and that is another point about racing- it is in part about frustrating other people's efforts!!

Given a perpendicular line, (or madness at the biased end predictable or that you can do a fantastic transit while mid line sag develops at 15 seconds to go, then it is about picking your lane some way over half way along  line, biased towards the first wind bend or predicted side the first. That is to say if you know there will be chaos at one end, usually RHS and you can take an advantage in starting clean ahead from a good transit, then choose a lane on the half side of the line which will get you nearer the first shift side or wind bend centre than further down or up the line.

For example - a)  If the shift pattern is lulling left as it often can be in Europe at least, then go down over to the left hand side and tack when you hit the shift- you will then earn back many boat lengths you lost in a biased line and also be able to climb over a pile of starboard tack boats who are just about to be headed and slow down.
b) there is a wind bend half way up the course approximately and you come into it 300m off the land feature which causes the permanent bend on the RHS this time. Now you have to plan a little more - you want to avoid two things- the scrumm at the committee boat end and double tacking to get into the sweet spot of the wind bend, down wind of the centre of the bend. You want to be actually crossing as many sterns as you can on port then exactly on the line to the big header you will get as you enter the bend ( Some classic ones on the Solent and the best I know well, The Roseneath Peninsula on a westerly). This means you have to sail up and get a transit on your  STB beam or a bearing, prior to the start, and know this which takes you up to the bend exactly. You need then a really fast start in order to clear the boats immediately to windward and half less shadow from the RHS bunch than other boats. Ideally then you just have yourself going full speed and then the bunch with a big sad between them allowing you to cross the followers on port: many of them will choose to bail out early and go right due to the windshadow and leebow effects from this tail end of the stramash. So this position of commanding your own little springboard on the bend's lifting effect, may mean you are half way down the line or it may mean you are right under the bunch Alternatively, especially in HC racing, you may want to start late on the boat end and hope that a faster boat ahead of you moves off quickly or do indeed double tack to then allow yourself a huge amount of freedom in tacking when you want to exactly.

Picking your lane is easy in some fleets where the lining up is tidy. You don't even need to look at your windex because you can mirror the angle of other people's bows. However some fleets have dogs and chancers who either reach in late or conversely,  sit nearly head to wind and can be deceiving you into an impossible roll over ie the lane you think is safe actually will strike them and avoiding them will put you in irons. I remember one idiot in the 1998 Sigma 33 championships just about tacking to try and hunt us up to the line, which we didn't have a transit on, so were deep down in line sag. He almost messed up our start and he must have lost a minute in getting his boat back or double tacking. 

The rule of thumb  at the biased end  is either to get in lane  and shut the door to windward last second steelers. Most likely the boat below you will fall off and most likely they will not push you up very hard if you are at the biased end. Leaving that lovely text book boat length to leeward is just a myth here: you are sardines in a can and amongst the best sailors in the fleet so you can just shadow dance with them.

Line sag can also be repeated in a sharp V shape after the IDM mark ( or before the Pin End on a port hand bias)  as boats either come in a little late or are a little slow, or because they cannot see the line and are a little nervous to get moving at T minus 30 seconds. This is where having a "behind the line" transit or sight line forward can give you the edge in getting going early and sailing into the V at 10 seconds to go, or in luring people forward into OCS only to break hard once you see the raft of boats moving with dangerous momentum to your lee at least. ( boats longer along the line probably have firstly a better transit and seconly more space to fall off into if they are early- this is a phenomenon of many OD fleets.)

Remember it is the sprint and that small boat trim errors can be overlooked relative to having your crew weight 100% out on the rail and the main and jib trimmed 95%. Once started, clear air is worth a good 30% on relative competitive boat speed, another 30% if you have windward advantage in terms of placing for the first shift or tack right: so 5% of fine tune is not worth dragging people off the rail for.

Further to this last paragraph, boat speed can be low on many OD starts because of the flock mentality, good covering or a raft of poker faces far too near the line with 30 secs to go. So if you get clear air and fall off just a little to get the foil speed up (when there is maximum flow over the keel and rudder) before then hardening up, you may be "pushing your neck out" to win the sprint. In other words, you get to optimum boat speed first before hardening up on that speed and you are then buying a ticket above a pile of boats who pointed and took longer to attain critical "foil-flying speed" ie the keel and rudder have full aqua-dynamic lift from fully attached flow. FInd out what that target speed or feel is in your own boat versus the recommended polar diagram- you may be lighter, heavier or have a slightly different groove feel and setting than the text book fleet boat- remember some polars are done from just data and not empirically adjusted.

All the above are about clearing your wind to windward, in fact and getting a nose ahead of the others to leeward.

2) Tacking up the cone and the first shift

I am a great advocate of knowing how the hell to tack up the cone: this is covered in earlier blogs and in plenty of other peoples blogs. The last time I did a nationals it was in a classic a couple of years ago, and we did crap due to a boat with a mussel farm on the keel, but on the one day we pulled out a couple of results we did something no one else in the fleet did- we tacked up the middle on the shifts or as we hit the "cone line" .

"The First Shift for a tack to port" is a classic in all good sailors almanacs on racing - if you are in the top five boats then you can pretty much tack when it hits, or set up for the tack knowing the boats above you are just about to go because they are good. Down the fleet you have to wait until things are a little thinner, and this is another advantages actually of starting RHS- you have less boats to tack over to the RHS (for a standard port rounding) and this means less boats to duck, less chances of crashing, less chances of being tacked on top of and more chance of getting a bit of free air as you go over.

I recommend to beginners and as a fresh look at things, when there is a bias or a course RHS bend, to start bang on the pin but also half a boat legnth behind the lead boats, either on port (if you know there are no other boats to your right other than those on the line) or reaching in on stb, hardening up and tacking asap you are clear of the committee boat.  This is because you book yourself a bit of luxury in being able to see how the race is panning out when you tack back again onto starboard. Also this tactic actually with a good enough bias can buy you dozens of places in an OD fleet which is very gratifying. Shhssshhh, everyone will be doing it. In handicap fleets as the smallest boat or the one with the hardest HC to water line legnth in the fleet, this can be a winning tactic in getting you into clean air.

Knowing the shift pattern or reading the sky and water, are then important: if it is a 500 m windward leg ( direct distance not sailed distance SOG) then you need to go over asap the shift comes to head you on STB. On a longer course, it may well be worth sailing on if the shift will last for only thirty seconds (ie a gusting shift, wind veered in the northern hemisphere) or it may be a must do and worth ducking a dog boat who looks pretty set on carrying on. Here knowledge of your competitors behaviour, their modus operandi, and how good they are at tactics and manoevres can be a game winner.

If the first shift is likely to be a big lift on starboard ie swinging RHS of the , then in fact you want to try and double tack up to the RHS of the course before it comes. This means in practice, looking for boats who tack away early from being in bad wind or OCS for example, and then going up in a double tack. If the shift comes then you will be on port and feel it so tack back immediately onto a safe line if you can. Given the first shift is both a shift right and increased windspeed, then this double tack will pay double too because you will gain a track to the right hand side and luff up in the gust which will beat both leeward boats on stb ( they get it after you and may come into your wind shadow due to this) and on port boats who feel like it is a lift and probably hold on in the gust rather than tacking. 


Back to the cone then.
Now on the first shift your aim is two fold: firstly gain places, but secondly in gaining places you must also secure as free a wind as possible. Eventually when you come on the lay line you will have virtually free air to windward at least, so really you can call the beat a dammage limitation exercise until the lay line is finally met at the place in the fleet you have managed to book.


I bet given less than two knots tide or current, that if you compared a boat which went over for a land based convergent breeze lift versus boats who tack shifts of 5' holding themselves to tacking up the cone of 60' angle, then you would find that the boats who did the cone won more places more often. It has to be a pretty big wind bend or big tide, like you get in the Solent or on the East Patch of the Clyde, in order for there to be a "early lay line" over to the centre of the bend which just like the windward mark's layline, must be followed with in 20 meters or so from a distance in over. Tidewise, yeah, especially if there is more than 2 knts or if there is less than 9 knts breeze. This may be worth ducking ten sterns for to get out of earlier.

The cone is not hard to learn, you can do it as I blogged earlier by keeping the windward mark over your front shoulder - tacking when it is somewhere between the shroud and your elbow raised along the deck's widest point. I did it once completely mathematically on a four nautical mile beat into lamlash bay, but we got caught in a big hole on one side with presumably some bad tide we had not predicted. That was a very boring night with ten places down the pan as the RHS boats which had been behind snuck over us. Here though this meant holding one tack for over a nautical mile, which is dangerous, so you really are forced to go up the side where the fleet behind you are to cover them and at least hold your position if you are not that is, in possession of some facts as to completely even wind or a shift pattern which is to be exploited.

You can work out means of doing bearings and so on, but the principle is just that, keeping the mark from the shroud to your front shoulder and tacking either on a shift, or to get right hand advantage (getting to the lay line earlier, but further back for a port rounding, which can win several places because you come in like a wall of boats on STB) or if you are going to be pinned in on the RHS in bad air or many stern ducks, just soldiering on with this rule of thumb and looking to keep clear wind, good boats speed and see if a "death slot" (ie coming into a line of STB boats near the windward mark on port) 


If you are in the top five of the fleet at this point 2/3rds of the way up the beat and there is a clear gap behind then you can choose to either go right there and then and accept being number 5 or 6,  the alternative being to carry on because there is very likely to be a gap or two on the lay line and you then maybe get a shift and come out with a few more places in the bag! Even just one place at this level of the fleet can mean a podium position after a series, or joy of joy, you may round first with a couple of boat legnths while the others concertina into each other on the layline and after falling of.


3) Roundings

The next big area losers lose, winners secure and hunters pinch places is in roundings. The windward mark is like booking a ticket on the layline, or being lucky and winning the lottery by coming in on port and whisking round with places in the bag.

Some fleets will want to have a trip mark to further separate the now windward boats from the ascending fleet.  Here people will prove to nose in and get water on you despite the change in the rules.  Others will take the chance to roll you. You can spot the tactic behind you and try it on yourself- ducking inside and gybing, going for an early hoist and either deep bear away or a quick reach into your own space, or holding back on your spinnaker trying to force boats all set for spinnie up into a broach worthy mistake of having to avoid your luffing.

You should not forget about the COURSE bias and the tide when you come in on the layline. One very weird thing about windward marks is that quite often they are in a different wind! What has happened is that you finally get a real handle on a wind shift or the new band of weather has a general shift as you lie on the layline and wonder why the compass reading is higher than before! Often though windward marks are laid as far as practically near land, or in shallow water or as long as the class and committee think a windward beat should be for the coniditins. The former situations usually mean that there is a wind change there. You have to capitalise on it and then get back on to the course side bias or play the strategy off wind.

The next round these days will not be a gybe mark but just the leeward mark. Here you generally want to come in wide and harden up bang-on-the-money, even needing to fall off a bit at the last second, to then rotate the midships around the buoy.

We had some great piccies from the weekends racing where the patient photographer stood on the quay at the same place during three roundings. We could see pretty bluntly then our good rounding and how much the boat behind made up on our low, bad rounding. Also we could see one important thing in the Melges, that in one we drove the sails round the curve, not just the rudder and hull! On the other we were oversheeted to hell, but we were coming in at double figures boat speed forgive us!

Okay so nicking round and getting the lane right off the mark is vital, so much so that you may want to concede one crazy place or do that thang that all racing sailors seem to hate post start line, slow down and book your berth round the mark patiently instead of being forced wide or coming in too hard on the transoms of those ahead of you.

Depending on the boat type you can also choose to pinch up maybe even twice to get a higher lane : this would favour either a fast approach  or a heavy boat doing a good speed, where you can carry the way up to almost head to wind and luff down again with the foils still "biting" ie flow attachment speed is maintained. In lighter boats or those the flow falls off, it may be worth doing a double tack. This can be killer in handicap fleets because you avoid sailing into the back of slower boats and free your wind from larger boats ahead, and force faster, higher pointing boats behind to go through your lee or tack.

Rounding the finish line bouys is also an art: you can call water for these because they are marks of the course and you should be able to use any bias by looking at which one is down wind and tacking near its layline not the other one. The rules since 2007 or something changed to allow you to dip the line, rather than crossing it. In any case the rounding should be a little more cautious as in OD especially hitting a mark here will throw away potentially dozens of places!

4) boat handling on the run/reach

Runs may seem pretty pedestrian in Handicap fleets with symmetrical (conventional bell shaped) spinnakers. In OD, you are aware that despite you all maybe only dong 6 knts you are fighting for that! In asymmetric boats, then you have the whole wind shift thing and the whole VMG thing thrown in to contend with.

A fundamental is knowing how the wind passes you: at an angle to the wind, a gust will quickly brush you and then you will sail out of it. If there is a definite band of wind down the middle of the course or channel, then gybe to stay in it!!

Also you should gybe on the lifts and remember that a shift with a gust is a double lift so if you know the pattern is shift-gust, then gybe early as you see the ripples coming.

Knowing your crew and boat speed on the offwind, " down hill" leg is a must because if your crew can do stuff like the above, or gybe at full speed, then do it as the situation dictates. However if your crew are tardy then plan fewer gybes and perhaps take the last two on white sails only to reduce the stress of the leeward mark.

Competition wise, the tactic of rolling someone or trying to con an unweary helm and crew into a Broach-Dive Through, you should always be thinking that maybe this luffing match will take me away from the guys behind who can slip through.

In an assy' spinnaker boat, you may want to threaten then "soak" down on the gust- this is a killer tactic if the boat ahead is a bit slow and stubborn as a competitior- you come in on the gust with the bow high of them, they luff up but as soon as you see the gust is starting to run out on its edge so to speak, you bear off hard with the gust and maybe slip the tack line to follow it as far as you can. The other guy has promptly sailed out of the gust and has a big way to fall off potentially in falling wind speed, forcing him to gybe over to cover you and then there is more to play for: given you were on port, he goes high and then gybes over to starboard to cover you again. You then are through him on port, but maybe only just. However the next time he has to gybe it will be back to port, and then you can tactically push him behind you. Especially good if you come in hard to the leeward mark like this.

In the Clyde sigma 33 fleet of the 1990s, which was the sovereign fleet for national champions and average national results, there was one boat which I think won the nationals only once, but he sailed like he had an assymetric. This meant covering lots more ground than the fleet but he never did stupid flyers out towards the laylines, he always gybed back to the fleet and through us midway. However what his game was all about was the very slightly better VMG earned him maybe one or two boat places, but then he would ALWAYS attack on starboard near the leeward mark (or as the case for distance races, the finish line) before gybing round neatly infront of a couple more victims. 

Soaking in either an assy or indeed a heavy displacement boat can really pay in situations such as: a big tide spot (deep channel or a shallow bar all water must pass over) , a rare gust ( as above, but deeper, following it even longer) , a narrow wind funnel / band, a tactical situation with many boats ahead or two boats luffing behind, or when the hard stuff looms and you just can't sail any further without either gybing or soaking deep. We use soaking in the Melges in very specific wind stregnths when it pays to ease the tack line and go deeper for better VMG , and in avoiding wind shadow and shallow water or needing to gybe more often round an obstruction or other boats. Also I prefer to use soaking into the leeward mark as it reduces tension in the boat and makes a pretty clear statement to others behind that we are ahead and going round so just get in line behind us.


5) Duck or Tack, Soak or Gybe Tactics

Here we are back to near the beginning and indeed pre start can be considered. On a beat then you have to get over to the lay line and you want to use the shifts and bends so you need to tack towards other boats. Then you can choose to either tack or go round their stern.  Very easy rules in order to gain and not throw away places.
a) Is there a good reason to go right now (in particular, towards the port rounding layline) ? Yes- duck ; No - Consider tacking back to stb, or pushing your luck and getting him to tack just by showing the way is right if he is a little to leeward of you.

b) Does your boat accelerate slowly out of a tack ? If yes,  Then no, duck

c) is there going to be more than two transoms to duck? If yes then tack when either before the first boat or over his line depending on which will offer the cleanest air.

d) Are they likely to be intimidated or reach match race style to a slam dunk tack on them? Yes, then tack is you would otherwise have to go aft

e) Is there a chance you will get clear ahead ? Then watch the water and tack on the last boat legnth of height to their  line. As I say above, coming over aggressively on port when everyone has to go over to the RHS, will often in my experience lead to weaker boats tacking over early as they see it is inevitable and think they can avoid then getting covered by you or having an argy bargy PRT_STB thing going on.  This is actually the voice of the experienced calling the tack on the STB boat because there is always the chance that a boat which goes behind will get a good shift on port and double tack on top of them. More experienced sailors and in fact less experienced sailors will hold to starboard because if you are in a dip/tack situation then they have the card to keep you one place behind them. The good sailor will force you to tack and then tack away asap onto the tack the cautious fool above did over to the RHS: hey he was going there anyway, he just wanted to waste your time Mr. Port. The mediocre sailor will try and defend a good slam dunk you have on them by luffing and puffing and generally messing things up for both of you. So follow then the rules above and then make it clear, at the right time and not before, that you will duck. Both boats will be holding starboard as hard as they can with everyone up, so you must not show either hand until you must manoerve ie that is begin your manoevre, not execute it: then you risk all sorts of rubbish. You can then reach in towards their stern and harden up so even if they try and tack on you at this point, you will have speed to get through. If they tack just as you fall off by surprise then you can try luffing back and rolling over them- this is a killer tactic if you are the only two boats in that patch but is really risky if there is a stb boat beyond as the boat being rolled can call water for the obsrtuction, loosing you two places as you need to tack and he can choose to bear away or slow down.

Summary: here you have it then, a fleet of thirty boats say: good start , this will get you in the top ten. Good first shift if you can go right or take advantage of it, well it is worth securing your place in the top ten at least because it will put more distance from the pack of 15- 20 boats who were slower of the start. Otherwise if two or three of the top boats are pinning each other on STB then a judicious tack to port can win you three places, QED 5th place or better at this stage.

Up the cone, or using major shifts and tide: once again this may only consolidate your place, but that is vital now, Alternatively it will win you one or two places. If you were off a poor start then the first shift and this next move will put you in the top of the chasing pack.

WIndward mark rounding: in the top 5 of a good OD fleet you will be defending your place.

Run / reaching down-wind-tacking, I reckon on just one place given that two boats dont have a luffing match

Leeward mark, once again booking your place, but a stb approach or a soak into it with a good drop and harden up, could win you two places. In a crowd, it could be worth many more places if you are in the pack.

Next beat- check the compass and the weather sequence forecast vs sky and wind direction. Treat it like the first, but with an eye to covering the fleet behind too just in case you and the other top five boats get caught on one side and dropped. The lead boats now will be doing the same, looking to cover while also go over early on a shift or use a gust lift on STB to wind a half a boat legnth in or so on the guy in front.

If you were off a bad start then the second beat is really important: here you must get up off the leeward mark on a high lane in free air and position yourself to get to the favoured side or out of tide asap. Now we are talking about maybe ten places from a back of fleet to mid fleet advantage, turning a discard into a useful result.

On the next run, some boats will be tiring and others will be trying to go wide to get passed folk infront. Play the shifts, follow the gusts down and use soaking to sneak through, while attack to roll over or to fall off under.

Finish line: There can be a place to be had if you are in the top 5 and the top 3 start match racing up to the line. Have an eye on the way down the last run as to the line, often skew, and work out a possible  safe lay line onto the leeward end. In mid fleet this can be worth five places often as you either sail shorter or get the best starboard layline to the leeward end of the finish line possible, forcing other boats behind you and literally picking off places from leeward port tackers and those who have sailed too far up to the weather layline or a mid way layline.

There we are in a nutshell, there is a whole stack of places to be had by concentrating on different aspects of your sailing, but in nearly all good OD races, the first group fast of the start, amplify their start advantage by having relatively clear wind and no ducking to get to the RHS of a port rouding course. You could in effect sail like a robot with a safe but fast start somewhere down the line and then tack on 5' shifts up the cone with a slight bias for port tack in the middle third of the course, taking you quiker to the RHS. Given you programme yourself on this and keeping clean air up the beat, your results will get better.

As I say though try a late start or two on the IDM end , tacking over early : at worst you will be able to read a lot of what the fleet did "under" you and at best you may book yourself a ride in the top quarter of the fleet.