Finesse and Mastery in Sailing as a Sport

As promised in the last blog, here is my first go at the topic of improving your finesse in sailing, or that of your pupils and considering the philosophy and practice of mastery in sailing.

In the sport of sailing we have luckily a type of test for your ability to sail with a degree of mastery through all aspects of technique and competitiveness, and that is the race. In its older form, the Olympic Triangle tests the sailor or team on all points of sail. Unlike other sports, the race course is a trial of many different elements of the sport as a whole - sprinting, endurance, strategy, tactics and coping with varying conditions in a race or over a series or season.

This blog will also draw on my experiences in martial arts and following the philosophy of learning and indeed mastery of the arts. Unlike sailing, the grading and competitioin system can be a lot more subjective, depending on expert judges and their opinions and biases. Racing Sailing Boats has one goal, the finish line. It is the one great measure of our performance.

Finesse and Focus

Before we can begin to master sailing we have to improve our finesse. It is
 like so many other physical sports, team or individual, very dependent on being able to conduct techniques perfectly and string together different techniques into a flowing

You may think that this most applies to dinghy sailing rather than yacht racing, but the finesse of each member of the crew and the work integration and flow between the team are just an extension of the principle over more individuals.

Obviously there is the physical finesse in being able to work the controls of the boat while under way. Sheeting, helming, balance, trim, heading are the classic five in the RYA circle of attention. We also can include in finesse and focus, setting up the boat before you hit the water or even start the season, and further into choosing opportune moments to adjust the running rigging to gear the boat correctly when sailing. The main area to concentrate on for all competitive sailors is then the duality of the individual operation, how small that can be defined, and then the chain of operations which make a manoevre or are reactive/proactive sailing to a course.

Finesse and focus are both also present in the PMA - positive mental attitude, and the objectivity you should learn to sail with in order not to come foul of the rules or actually breach the sporting spirit. On the other hand though, you should be able to channel aggression into decision making and energtic actions. This then relies as in martial arts in real self defence situations, that you have practiced and have both the confidence to act under pressure, and the agility and precision from practice in order that it is done with finesse- that is to say it may not be absolutely perfect, but you do not make mistakes from taking an assertive, rapid tactic or manoevre.

Key Physical Areas For Finesse

In sailing there are three main physical (-motor-spatial ) areas to consider

1) Coordinating hand /arm movements
2) Footwork and balance
3) Efficient use of body strength

Dinghies are of course the usual start point for helm and crew, but also a good place for keel boat sailors to go back to in order to improve their finesse, and gain better Wind Sense as in the last blog. To sail competitively there is of course the added challenge in the former two points above, of either hikling out or trapezing, but for the sake of practice in fact the boat can be depowered in order to have just lght weight based hiking from the deck and then focus on the techniques above while under coaching, or out training.

In terms of not using single handers and moving from two man boats upoever there is then the additional challenge of several bodies acting as one physcial machine, with the exacting choreography of the 18foot skiffs, and now foiling multi hulls being the asthmus of this challenge.

Here we could write a whole chapter on crew coordination, but instead we will consider helmsman movements and the single hander for the most, with a couple of comments on crewed up sailing.

a) Getting the Boat Up to Speed and Controlling Speed and Position or Course

Although luffing up and falling off can be considered manoevres, they are taken here as simler ideas, of just getting the boat on course and either holding a heading or reacting to circuumstances around you.

The main skills here then are of course sheeting and steering, while as mentioned in the laser or other dinghy, hiking for balance and trim is also there alongside the arm/hand coordination and use of technique over brute body force when  ever possible.

The two can be separated out though too, and considered separately until competance is achieved in each with a degree of finesse, when the need to focus on the interplay of hiking and sheeting/steering and achieve finesse in this overall mechanical system.

Different exercises from childres sailing courses are actually very good for adults too, like slalom bouys at different points of sail, follow the leader, mirror the leader (simon says) and as mentioned in the last blog, sailing without a jam cleat will greatly increase both the effective work out time and the feel for how much power the rig is producing.

Practice at starts and at artificially busy roundings are also very instructive, and help the teacher see the issues individuals may have, amplified under the induction of a bit of competitive stress.

b) Tacking and Gybing, cockpit choreography
 I still have trouble with these basics in the Melges 24 due to the very short spacce to pass through between tiller end and mainsheet, and the need for a fairly lon tiller extension. I never get enough practice in fact that is the issue, it is dooable smoothly.

This area is very well covered in all the literature, with nice videos and plan view dancing diagrams of foor work. Some classes even have the actual best places for feet mapped out! So I will cover a little more of the philosophy

Breifly though in technique break downs /In dinghies for later racing in dinhies, the steering behind back must be introduced in early days, and practiced as a sub unit it its own right.

Breaking down the technique into different elements is the best means of learning, and actually as with the tiller behind your back for two minutes or more, sometimes you want to repeat each move separetly, returning to starting positiion, or following through the rest of the tack/gybe roughly. So for example it could be just putting the foot over the hull, or the unit of sheet in luff up and move into the boat, getting your optimal position memorised such that the rest of the choreography goes well. The same can be done on a crewed boat, in off the rail at the right time, jib released from cleat ready to blow it and so on.

On spinnaker boats this is good to do. Sqauring off the pole as you bare off, setting up the new guy and so on, again and again. Gybing the pole DDW, back and forth, back and forth keeping control  before the main ever comes over and so on.

The focus can be very visual, where the foot will go as you swing over, where the tiller end will be and not go further than and so on, but it is really the motor-spatial memory that is trained here.  With better sailors, blind folding can be a way of really making the manoevres 'hard wired' and run almost on autopilot, but instructors need to be very close with the rescue boat in case of mishap.

c) Mark Roundings and Meeting Other Boats
Mark roundings and having to avoid other boats, or alternatively make a competitive advantage by manoevring area areas pretty much the same as b) but with the added tension of having to move accurately in space around objects and not just relative to your own progress.

Once again they should be broken down so they become second nature. Very short courses where boats have to round every twenty to thirty seconds, are ideal for either practice alone, or as a group when there begins to be an element of this second nature, it really sharpens it up, like driving a car in busy traffic just after you have passed your test.

Mastery 

There is one book which is absolutely the definiative lay man's text in this and that is the highly readable 'Mastery' by George Lennard. A very good read while on a long haul flight or a bed time story for yourself at a series. For a longer and funnier read, you could also find 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert Pirsig.

They both introduce the way the japanese think about many challenges and what achievement is. " If Perfection was Achievable, It wouldnt Be Worth Working For" is a mantra here. You will hear also then a related expression which has become almost a cliche amongst the world's top sailors  " We learnt a lot today" . We are tallking Russel Coutts and Ben Ainsley here, that they still see that they are on a learning curve and indeed of course they purposefully choose new learning curves by changing type of boat and crew.

Mastery is then considered to begin with being humble and realising you will always be learning. It means receptive to new challenges and the long process towards mastery with the journey being more rewarding than the goals along the way in terms of mastery.

The next stage is often to seek a master, or let the elements be your master. This means once again being humble. Accepting adivce from others, sailing with better sailors, getting shouted at, being flicked off good boats, feeling a bit like you are patronised to, and then the reverse, learning from teaching and honouring the illustration that others mistakes show you without deriding their performance.

Now comes the horrid bit about '10, 000 hours to master anything". It has been quoted out of context very much to the annoyance of the original academic author. However as a philosophy it means that to be able to achieve anything at a world class level, then you have to put in many dull hours of practice.  As part of thiis body of work which lead to his conclusion or statement, 'talent' was considered .

 in the old nature versus nurture and it seems that in fact talent perhaps counts for a lot lest than motivation, stamina and a steady determination. In fact also, the goal setting is often not to be the best in the world of course, but it is maybe to be the best in music class, or the best in selection for wide reciever or centre foward.

It can be also that the person is very good at setting personal goals, which they enjoy achieving, or as I find in myself, I hate losing and have learned to take lessons from it. From the first time I set foot on a racing boat and got rolled over, or came poorly in the results I wanted to do better. It spurned me on to learn more. Getting flicked from good boats or given less responsibility, motivated me to get better. Often I wouldnt dwell so much on the set backs, rather I would just go and do something else in sailing or book myself on a course at a school. Eventually as I say above, I started to see the benefit in losing, in that you get to see the faults you make.

" If you make three mistakes in a race, then perhaps you earn a third place. Two and may get second place, while if you make only one mistake in a race you will win" Uffa Fox

This is an admission that boats never sail a perfect race, and at a high level in one design, the top of the fleet are going to win or lose based on mistakes, not how good they are per se.  

This is the horse that feels the whip philosophy. If you do not feel the pain of mistakes then you will never learn to avoid them. Talented players in tennis, football and music often get frustrated by set backs, and suffer ego blows badly. They can also get bored with the next concept within the 10,000 hours branch to mastery

Plateauing

This is the one part of the idea of practice makes perfect which is partly counter intuitive and for some, partly soul destroying. Knowing that at a particular level after some initial gains in performance, it is likely that you will need to practice the skill or train physically at that level for a seemingly prolonged time before the next gain.

Also the next gain is often not something you can plan for.

" The More I practice, The Luckier I Get.." Gary Player, the golfer

This is a very real feeling in sailing. It really means in my experience that the competance, finesse and self confidence from many hours sailing in a season or school pay off in being able to take the opportunities better than before, and over come the set backs out on the race course.

In choosing a new team or boat to sail with or being asked to coach on a choice of keel boats, I prefer to be on a boat with a dynamic of improving and using my experience I enjoy nothing more than helping the whole team move up to being on the podium, getting the silver ware. It has to be said that my current team is frustrated and complacent, and that is because we are all good racing helms and would expect ourselves to do better. The owner wont listen to advice and misinterprets rules. However I am just plateauing a bit and hope that some few more pennies will drop from my and others hints to the owner as to how to move on and up the results list.

In martial arts 'dojos' the Sensai may often have the entire troop do the same warm ups and katas for ten or more weeks, several times a week. Then when he sees that the new beginners have achieved a competance, while the higher belts have learned humility with the young, shown patience and their diligence is then rewarded by more teachings at their level.

Being on the plain can seem to some a desolate and frustrating place, where repition shows no immediate reward Indeed part of being at a level of circulation if you like, is that in fact you are putting more hours in that the competition. You should be havcing training sessions and going to sailing school nights. You should be out long before the start and going throught the days settings, choreography and feel for the boat.

As a keel boat helm and dinghy crew, I used to hire out a laser myself from a local authority outdoor centre and just go out and do roll tacks, feel my wind sense, practice body coordination. I would go for little trips to interesting rocks or navy moorings, or bays and just get a feel for how to get there and how to get back. It was very low level, kind  of circulating my competance. It felt really good though, relaxing.

All this practice on the plain builds up your hard wiring in the brain, like driving a car or learning to ski or cycle as a kid, you are making and  reinforcing new connections in the brain and probably fine tuning these, making new sub routes without actually experiencing gain. Then you have really learned by doing, and your body and mind are ready to absorb the next level of course, or you just find that you move forward suddenly.

The Quickening

As I say in sailing we are as lucky as 100m sprinters in that we get a pretty direct feedback on how our training and application of competance is performing when the race results pan out.

Being on a plain is as I say, not really to a timetable while seasons and events are. To my bitter experience it is better to keep on at school and seek out help on the basics before you tackle even a season of wednesday nights at a club with a high level of competition. There is actually little to learn in comparison to the frustration of not being abkle to tackle situations or hold up boat speed.

On the other side of this though, is stretching yourself enough so that you test to see if you are still on the plain or if you have moved on. Also having been on the plain and then either beginning racing or racing in a better fleet or at your first nationals, you will be able to appreciate your stregnths and weaknesses in boat handling better from your solid base of practiced competance. Also it becomes clearer to other people what your short comings are, and where you are competant such that you get more specific advice and you are more receptiive to it.

Sometimes then you bump up and come down again from having participated in an event. Training can then feel like a safe place to come back to and lay the many bricks of the foundation without perhaps seeing how the whole building
will look or how long it will take to finish.

The same is true of courses and schooling. It can be good as an adult to do a year at an evening sailing school and crew on a longer cruise as a new beginner. Later you will probably be racing at the school and can get racing in your own boat or as crew for someone in the club. After this point you should really get practicing as much as you can, at what ever you want to do, wednesday racing or just sailing around the cans away from race night.  Setting then a higher goal as a certificate to gain is very worth while, and that involves often a residentail sailing school as a holiday with instruction for up to a week followed by the exam.

 You should always through out your career seek to sail with masters in sailing, in yuor or their boats, and vary the type of boat you crew oon. Finally after a couple of years or more of bui8lding basic competance you can start to ask specific questions and see specific areas you need to learn about and improve motor-spatial ability within. Asking the right questions usuallky means that people will bother to help you or point you in the right direction.

Otherwise any road will take you there, if you don't know where you're going.