Deconstructing your Sailing - To Reconstruct!

In my last blog I I mentioned that some sailors can become frustrated with their lack of progress - skills wise, and results racing wise. I include a former version of me very much in this. " I should be better than this!!" frustrations taken out on boat, crew, weather-gods or other boats! If you read the last blog and are in a tantric state of mind even, then read on because now we will delve more into " learning to learn again" Deconstruction In sport this is a term used to encompass analyses of your technique, attitude and performance. It means breaking down the constituent parts of performance, from motoric movements and hand-eye coordination to motivation and channelled agression. It means visualising your past successes, failures, weakness and stregnths. It may well be the case that from deconstruction as an open ended start point, you uncover an issue you didnt identity as important before you took things into little bites of the cherry. There are as mentioned. the mental aspects and the movement aspects. Elements from performance " on the day" and in training or practice or when you are being taught by someone. Let us Look First at some Deconstruction of Physical Movements Tacking as an example to deconstruct This is a good example of a sub-set, a first level "deconstruct" to then drill into. How is my tacking ? Am I and the crew doing things slowly or incorrectly ? Always though the attitude is " how could I possibly improve?" and this is part of the power of deconstruction. The mental aspect is something we will come back to ie "should I tack?" We are looking at the movements here and now. Timing wise, we have the pretack set-up, the entry to the tack, the mid point , the exit on the new side, the completion of the tack and last but not least the after tack movements. Now you can break these down into actions relating to equipment and then to movements of your (and the crew's) body Actually I am not going to write anymore on that. You can think through it yourself. So take this as a visualisation on the quayside, while motoring out to sail, or on the bus for that matter! When you go out and practice in light of deconstruction, do everything a little slower and when possible take a micro pause to evaluate and describe in your mind even, what you have just done. Define your base line like this. A tack can be done quite slowly with time to reflect at each of the main deconstruct elements as above. Just a two second assertion of what you have done, then onto the next movement of your body which is not being focused on, but for sake of completion alone. You dwell a little on your pretack, or when the helm goes down rather than attempting a perfect tack after that element is completed.
Analyse that part of the tack, and try to improve it. eg less helm used. See if that works better or faster? Or just more fluently which is important in sailing. As mentioned below, maybe get some video of your start point and how you attempt to improve this. Or some external advice from a club coach. When I teach sailing I now dont initially teach tacking and gybing. Firstly I teach starting and stopping. Then I teach hardening up, then falling off. And stopping from different angles to the wind on outset, on the same tack. This was my own deconstruction because these are the basic elements of good sailing I have identified from many years of sailing myself and teaching youth and adults. Now I hope you can see the philosophy. You divide these skills up into packages which you can focus on. Each one is a building block for improvment. Focus on each then as in a tack, you can string them together So going into a tack, set up, you dont even maybe need to tack! just repeat the set up - how you maybe stand up, or luff the boat, or even bear away a little in some older designs to get some way on for the inevitable braking during the tack. Putting the helm down, once again focus on this, doesnt matter if the rest is sloppy, you have been able to focus on this element and then REFLECT a second on how it went, ignoring the precision of the rest of the tack ( colision and other safety factors included though so you dont crash!) Now move on to a weak area for me for example. Knowing when you are head to wind - this is important because it relates to the amount of helm you need to use, which varies between boats and in different conditions. I have identified this as one important "deconstruct" - in my case, should I look at the windex? Can I relate this to the sail position and other eye level queus from the surroundings? How quickly do I achieve this and lastly how quickly do I come out of this so the jib begins to fill on the new side? A dinghy sailor in a performance boat may not want to use this deconstruct. They may rather want to get a feel for the sweep from helm down, to jib filling and how much helm they use initially and when they can straigthen the helm. Another element being looking at " choreography" with their feet and the crew. SO two instead of maybe four elements in my case Self Help Vs Schooling Deconstruction can be then a personalised thing, your own ideas and your own distillation of the elements and how to focus on them. You can very much benefit from outside help too. This is because in sailing as in many other physical sports, there have evolved some really good ways of doing things! Some people are very See-Do, that they intuitively can relate to other's movements and copy them. I had one kid sail a laser at sailing school and he was just a natural. He had sailed a day or two the year before, but he was as good as 12 year old squad candidates. He just had great hand-eye coordination, body control and could the see-do thing Most of us, me included are far from this. We try to emulate movements but we mess up. More on that in the mentalising section. Outside help can be very beneficial. It may just be in the form of a pal videoing you from astern in the case of deconstructing tacking, to actually hiring a seasoned coach to come out with you for a day. In either case you want to tell them you are deconstructing and which element you are focusing on! This might surprise some dinghy instructors who havent come upon deconstruction, but it will give them a steer to analyse you and instruct you with a very specific focus. They can then correct your movements or actions, and reinforce them when you practice. I would say an hour each on each element on tacking for example, so the best part of a day at a dinghy school where the instructor comes over to you once in a while and you tell them exactly what you want to look at under the microscope so to speak and are receptive to tips, change and practicing new things If you own a larger keel boat then there is a good case for a "transom consultant" ie someone who does not need to participate in crew work, but can sit or stand behind you and analyse your technique. Once again tell them you are deconstructing your sailing. Tell them what you want to look at as a practice, or in the course of a race. The beauty of mobile phones with relatively wide angled video is no to be underestimated. A mini cam ( Go Pro etc) fixed on the push-pit rail or if it can be mounted on the aft stay, or lets be up to date here, send a drone out to follow you through some manoerves! Another area to consider consultancy and reading the books, is in rig settings. If you sail one design you may notice other boats fair better than you in some condiitions. Are yuou adjusting your rig correctly or even at all? The first element here, for example, is usually confirming the forestay length is correct, then the initial rake of the mast, then the prebemd, then the running rigging setting to get more or less bend, and fuller or flatter sails. There you have a " whole bunch" of deconstruction elements on a plate for you. They inter-relate, but can be taken one at a time. Mental Deconstruction I think the point about using an external pair of eyes, or video view point leads nicely into how to deconstruct your mental aspects of skills and performance In the case of external coaching you are forced to think out of the box. " Oh, would some Power the gift give us To see ourselves as others see us" as Rabbie Burns put it. There is a power in this form of advice, but only if it is focused and actionable. We also need to see ourselves objectively when we consider the psychological side of sport Here a simple place to start is reflecting on yourself " before-during-and-after" - you may benefit from doing this as an actual exercise rather than retrospective to last performance. Before I sail.. What do I think and feel? Am I having constuctive behaviours for myself and others ? Am I forgetting things I should have done/fixed/alterered for the sail? Have I considered the weather forecast and how conditions will suit or not suit my abilities ? I found I was very nervous before races I was helming. In early days of owning a dinghy, I wasnt mentally prepared to go and set up the boat correctly - usually I didnt have time and took it for granted but messing about with rig tension or forgetting to set a tight kicker and outhaul messed up a good few races. I analysed this. My nerves were related performance anxiety. I was an experienced sailor, I should expect to have a competitive sail and do well. There was a slight conflict between and entitled feeling and an expectation of maybe failing. A bit like the English soccer team perhaps. Worse though, my nerves lead to adrenalin and cortisone coarsing in my veins and that lead in my case to more mistakes and oversights. Now high adrenaline maybe is beneficial to some sailors in being able to challenge themselves to get a really ballsy start but in my case, pre race, it was very counter productive. So I deconstructed it. And challenged it. And when I sank my shoulders and moved over to helming yachts, I won my first race by a country mile. During the prestart I was acalm and collected, reacted well to the bowman not having a watch, ran up and gave him mine, got a clean start and then used all my dinghy skills to ease the boat up the fleet, then making a decisive roll tack out of a hole and into a wind band on the other shore which I then capitalised on. Ten years of dinghy experience crystalised into one yacht race. I could sail really well, but my pre start nerves destroyed the whole game for me. When I realised in my heart (so to speak) that I have nothing to lose, that I can make an ok start without busting a ball, that I can perform up the field as the race progresses then I developed more consistency and as mentioned, it actually came as a quantum leap in my performance. I have written quite a lot in this deconstruction on what we have broken down to look at and how we may break it down into constituent parts again. But what about the mental process as a start point? Do you and your crew debrief post race? Is that not a deconstruct in itself? With major gains to be had in identifying errors and areas for improvement by taking time to talk through a race with your crew or objectively with a close competitior. It can be "why did we do well?" Often in the case of doing well, ie winning or podium, or doing badly that the crew lose objectivity. In the former boat packed up, off to the beere tent to brag and bask in glory. In the latter, taciturn crew, murmerings and whispered bitterness. Two good opportunities for objective analyses are lost. But a good start point in the bad day out is to just consider one " deconstruct" to get tongues wagging, then ask for more open, constructive criticism. SO let us talk about deconstructing mentally in how to approach this.- Is my whole approach philosophy good or bad? Do I really actually, factually, enjoy the type of sailing I am doing? DO nerves affect me badly or give me a positive energy and drive ? Do I have stress points in the course of a race or manoevre ? Am I able to analyse what I am doing underway and reflect on it after? Am I able to visualise good technique and comeptitive tactics before a race ? Am I capturing the information I need in order to then think through what adjustments to rig and running rigging I will need to do pre race and off wind ? Am I making the race enjoyable and challenging enough for the crew or pushing them too hard -? Summary Deconstruction is about compartmentalising elements of skills and performance. You are cutting things up into small packets. This enables you to focus on very specific elements both physically and psychologically as we have discussed. When you " fix " on packet you can then work on another, or string several packets together into a total manoevre, mindset, ability etc as we could do with tacking. Put all the packets you practiced together and practice the whole thing, being a little observant as to any poorer elements or now, as a package merged into one, if you are actually doing this fluently between the component parts you worked upon before. Tacking is a great example. But so is the verbal communication to the crew for a bear away hoist, during which you will maybe only swing the tiller but need to remind the crew what to do, and inform them if it is a gybe set, quick set, early pre hoist or wait until boat speed is up and hoist. In outset them you need to identify these potential "deconstruct" elements. You need to have a goal only to focus on these and see if you can improve. Perhaps there is a measurable target or goal, but I would suggest that is more in the realms of reptitive practice rather than deconstruction because stripping your skills down to basic small constituents is quite radical and can lead to a new start point for practice and repition to develop the skill further. In identifying elements and analysing them, do you need external help ? Remember to tell them what you want to explore - you are deconstructing one element, please focus on that. Maybe they will just film you from astern, but they need to be told what to film in detail. I would say for sailing start with starting!" How to start and stop the boat! How to sail over a start line without other boats to the shot of the gun! Are there sub elements you actually need to extract and focus on? The most difficult packages to identify are probably the mental elements which are holding you back. This is an area for reflection but also for another pair of eyes and ears. Ole Einar Bjørndalen is probably the greates ever biathalon athelete, and with 8 gold medals, one of the best olympians ever, winter and summer. One coach he turned to knew hardly anything about skiing. Ole Einar credits Oyvind Hammer, a Dick Vitale style pitchman for Filter Queen vacuums and motivational speaker on the side, for elevating his confidence and consistency of performance. A motivator. They had a long term business partnership and friendship. There can then be many elements, which relate to each other in a " work flow" or there can be mental elements linked to the physical ones. Where to begin? Given that you know you are very weak or error prone in one area, then begin there. Break it down. Ad infinitum should be obviously avoided, but a suprising level of detail should be worked on as a " deconstruct" element. If you are a seasoned sailor and are at a bit of a loss as to why you dont perform better then I would say get an outside pair of eyes in, a transom-consultant. Maybe you feel your sailing is rubbish, or that you have come to an impasse in performance, or just have a couple of bug-bears like for example tacking, then deconstruction is a powerful technique to strip down to elements and understand what you are doing wrong or how possibly you could do better. It is also a bit like a reboot for a computer with a lot running, you reopen with one software and its' settings at a time to use that analogy. Using it can be a positive turning point for your sailing or other sport or job for that matter. A major effect of deconstruction is that it breaks down barriers to learning.

Freddy's Winter Bookworm List for Sailing

I promised a list of books to read in the winter and here it is.


Technique, Tactics and Boat Speed


Lawrie smith and his cowriters are hard to beat when it comes to several key texts they published in the late 80s early 90s. They can now be had for peanuts on amazon or at the odd boat jumble..

His book "Sailpower" was perhaps previously called just Sails.These editions discuss the physics of sails, basic through to advanced sail trim and cover the advent of big assymetrics. They also cover upto atleast the advent of kevlar and panel sails, but perhaps not tape drive, spectra and later carbon laminate sails.

Sails was the copy I had hold of for winter 93-94 on loan from a pal, and it used the Mumm 36 and I think the sigma 38 as examples of mast bend, rigging adjustement and trimming. These are ideal boats to consider because they teach you a lot about how sails function and how the whole rig's geometry is set up.

Rig tune is by no means a black art, nut certainly mid to back fleet sailors pay little attention to something which is absolutely as cruical to get right as say the last ten centimeters on the jib and mainsheet. Just half that small distance on the masthead can make a very big difference to pointing in many boats, even up to forty feet!

The Mumm 36 for traditional, symmetrical kites and Melges 24 tuning guides are on line now of course, and once you understand the principles from the many diagrams in the texts, the tuning guides will give you insight as to just how finely rigs really need to be tuned for conditions. Google them by sailmaker, north's or Ullman usually have the best for true one design sail sets and rigs.



I own a different book in fact which is a kind of predecessor I believe and I have misplaced it by Tim Hayes!!! Anyway that and a few different dinghy books are in the "Sail to Win " Series whose little olympic triangle logo is to be found poking out of many a good sailor's top book shelf.

Lawrie contributes from his small boat series with Dinghy Helming to Win in various editions.

My favourites are sails as above, Tuning to win by Pinnell and Davision and Tatics by Rodney Pattison and Tim Hore. Postage is more or less all it costs to get some of these as they are penny bucket buys on  amazon.

A bible of skiff racers has been Frank Bethwaites seminal and slightly eccentric High Performance Sailing and if you didn't know a sequel was written by him and Julian which is called HighER Performance Sailing which I still have not read because the great man promised me a signed copy and then shuffled off this mortal wave! This book gives testament to the niner development programme and the development of their ultimate hull which saw light as the short lived but wonderful 59er.

On Youtube (neither very me, nor a cathode ray tube now) a very good series was made by a gang of young Solent sailors out in their Etchells, whcih is still quite probably the toughest fleet of any boat to win or even get in the top ten in the UK. The videos are particularly good because rig tune and things like chocks and hauling the rig forward on the spare halyard are discussed as part of boat handling, and so I think it kind of makes the point of how and why rig tune is important and what to do.

The Rodney Pattison book has whiskers on it, and why the hell not. Boats haven't changed that much, and wheras thirty years ago there were many boring tonne thingies with masthead telegraph poles, now there are carbon fibre fractionals which need some true attention to detail and sail more like dinghies in many respects. Rodney's book touches in two pages on tidal vectors, and that with COG , heading and 'course to steer' is my own winter reading to extend my knowledge for future battle strategy.

Light Distraction

The lightest of distraction is the film "Wind" which is technically quite correct, mixing a deal of fiction into the real events of regaining the "auld mug" for the USA from the presiding Aussies who stole the Americas Cup away from their very noses with clever keel design and great sailing.

A good read and a bit of a giggle when you think of the old boffin puffing on his pipe or turning up at the pub in Cowes in his international canoe, is " According to Uffa" by the late, great Uffa Fox of course. With lines like "when I invented the kicking strap' you know you are up with a true pioneer of modern light weight sailing, and it is a great shame that really only his flying fifteen desing remains his sole lasting testimony in modern sailing, because many say the larger Flying' desings rivalled the Etchells and Soling and were more fun to sail, being kind of scale-rule models of each other, with that nice planing aft deadrise area. The odd flying twelve still exists in beautiful wood, such as one which was moored up in Arisaig bay for many summers. A good read about innovation at least, and kind of a 'high performance sailing' for the 1950s tweed and wool jumper period.

Less light reading, much more exciting by all means, and of course tragic in its last chapter, a very good winter read is Alan Seftons Biography of Sir Peter Blake, the man behind making kiwis proud not only of their exploits on a hündred and two yards of grass trampled with a funny shaped ball in hand. It details the early and very hairy whitbread races he took part in as well as his Americas Cups. A couple of books I have not read buyt maybe will about the whitbread are by Jourdine  and Skip Novak who was aboard Drum on its spin and bin tour. I must read that because Rhu was my home port as crew for a decade of my Scottish exploits before Pwhelli, then Oban and then Bergen of all places. One book I do own, in Norwegian, but is available in English is Knut Frostad's Whitbread - Responsible for the Irresponsible ,. which is a ripping set of adventures, with some nice technical stuff and computer graphics. Really the peak of the race, in the tight box design boats which looked much more elegant than today's swing keel upturned clothes irons of the 'new market penetration' tame race around the target sponsor nations.

If you get that far and the season approaches, then bother an old caudger in the club bar for some PBO' back editions and find stuff about GRP, boat prep, fairing keels, painting, two pack epoxy, dewinterising, blocks, winches and so on as the season approaches you may be able to tackle more small and even major jobs than you imagine.

I could not find my favourite texts on metereology, one of which may be just in Norwegian, but there was an enigmatic book about forecasting called 'instant forecasting for yacthsmen' or the like, which just had lots of rather iffy colour prints with the question 'what happens next'. Earlier editions printed on 'plates' are better as are later editions which had better qauility inks than the middle years it seems. Quite challenging, I only get about half right. Lies in my brothers' yacht all summer. Generally any good text which goes into both big scale and small scale wind movements and how weather is created and so on, is worth picking up in the Library while of course sailing specific texts will teach you then how general weather phenomenon are modifeid or commecne locally by sun, tide and landscape, such as solar modified gradient breeze and convergent near shore bands of breeze.



Enjoy your winter eves, Fred' out!!!

The Wings of the Wind Bear Us Onward to Jerome K. Jerome

"There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet, except in dreams.

The wings of the rushing wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know not where....

You are no longer the slow, plodding, puny thing of clay, creeping torturously upon the ground....you are a part of nature...

Your heart is throbbing against hers. Her glorious  arms around you, raising you up to her heart......your spirit is at one with hers, your limbs grow light.

The voices of the air are singing to you. 

The earth seems far away and little,

and the clouds so close above your head are brothers, and you stretch your arms to them"

Jerome K Jerome from 'Three Men in a Boat'

Big Boats- I Get It Now...... a Spot of 12mR Racing for Fred

Last week I managed to combine my two passions of Sailing and Photography in a couple of sweet days at a wooden boat festival and regatta for meter raters down the Norwegian Riviera. Like many of you blog readers I dare say, I have often wondered about the appeal of sailing boats over 45 feet with their huge sail area and thereby necessity for lots of able bodied crew, and extra attention to correography on the decks. Now I have to admit to being a bit hooked. But lets cut a short story long....


 I volunteered as dock and RIB boat crew for the festival and wangled my place firmly at the meter quay to enjoy just looking at the scene of  seven 60 footers and various 8mR and 9mR wooden delights which began to arrive mid week. Like all regattas with boats sardined in at one end of the visitor harbour, there was a good deal of stress the first few times in and out, not helped by an unusual summer storm blowing up enough swell to make for trouble through the harbour at Risør. It is very unusual in summer because the opening to the sea,  between their own mini ' Hebrides' otherwise so sheltering for the town,  is only about 150m. A bit of chaos and extra anchoring ensued until 11 pm, I had been drenched working in the inner harbour with only a tee shirt under me oily so had gone to my lodgings for a smuggled Lemsip to nurse my worsening cold.

The next day's racing was offshore beyond the outerst of the wee noggie Hebrideans, where there was true wind and left over swell to sail in, at the easter extremity of the North Sea aka the Skagerakk. Some local lads and various interested folk were on some of the slightly short crewed 12mRs and I wondered about my obligation to the dockside service and my heavy cold, versus popping out with one. I also was pretty keen to get out in a Rib and take some photties. I hummed a bit too much on the first day with the best light conditions, and one of my oppo's snuck out for a couple of hours with one of the RIB "tug" drivers after all the 12mRs were nudged out the harbour mouth.

I managed an hour of photting on the slightly duller day, and in fact for the conditions and my now virtually prehistoric DSLR, (olympus E450, see other blogg) I got some good enough shots, let down only by leaving a polarising filter on and knocking the camera wheel onto aperture from shutter priority at one point. It was bouncy and a light rain shower came on. The E450 was the smallest DSLR in the world when launched, and being also their lower model, it lacks any form for weather proofing other than due care, a jacket at hand, the camera bag and a good plastic bag over that.

There we are, some photting of boats some grown men lust, dream and drool over. For me "big boats" seemed something for Cowes and Newport in most ways. Scottish waters since the 1980s has had a bit of a mixed experience with some well known 60 foot plus racing boats and the odd egos of those who owned them, and generally sailed them pretty badly. They did also attract the usual groupies who like matching sailing gear and big beers to go with the size of boat. I kind of hate groups, yet I love teams.

That is the crux of the matter then. I saw that one boat, Le Cid, a 1956 12mR crusier kitted racer, was being helmed by a guy called Stein Victor with a chap called Gunnar on bow. I had sailed with them in Hollenderen and Færderen races on a 362s ten years ago. They needed crew, so on Friday while I had booked a RIb trip, I found a couple of crew for them pronto. Saturday I sailed with them.

Another thing that kind of put me off bigger boats is the lack of immediacey, the lack of self responsibility and the following lack of control I had percieved. Also things like crew coreography bosses, having met a couple off the water or very snobby owners and so on were kind of preconceptions I had. It seemed the thing to do, since it was my first sail actually this season, to ease my way in with guys I had spent a good few days training and competing intensely with at least, and it prove very much to be the case.

I have sailed on a few 45 footers and in fact the 12m rater at a length of just over 60 ft (18.4 m) just didn't feel all that much bigger. The pole, boom, shackles and all the sheets were twice the size it has to be said. Rather hoping to be second on bow and avoid the ridiculously small offshore cockpit, I was indeed given mast, being the tallest on board forward of the beam where I had been loitering with intent..... so mast and inward end it was .....with help of two others.

Experience and being awake are really what equiped me to come on board this boat and do a good job, while also fitting into the general coreography on board. The core team had all sailed lots together and eat and breath sailing up in Oslo, so there was no stress and never a raised voice. In effect the coreography was helping each other out, rather than say in the hoists, actually being a closely honed machine of whizzing arms. I am so big that a fast hoist by the only way I know, jumping and pumping, excludes most people from a 3m radius, so I just let someone spell me when friction and wind took up the strain, and then I tailed the winch for the last few meters. That was one difference though, the spinnaker seemed to take forever to be 'made' at the top, and the clutch was shit too.

We could see other teams with all their matching, logoed up regatta gear not bothering to hoist or trying the stupid code zero thing with a standard kite, which doesn't really work. Also one boat, which will remain nameless but was Danish and being helmed by a former Finn olympian, did a text book bad leeward rounding, due to a late drop mess up the preceeding day, as captured on digital brick above. She sailed her self down three places with one little mess up, and that goes to show that the way these boats carry, the sail area and the lack of gaurd rails on most of them, means that risk taking has to be minimised and recoveries cannot be taken on the edge of a broach as with smaller 'tupperware'.

I must say I am hooked on big boat sailing, as in much the way I was when I sailed each new 'category' of boat and each new job I progressed to in my career. I enjoy teaching sailing skills to less experienced folk and there were guests aboard,  and there are some new techniques of working hand-over-hand with a larger team which I find a new challenge. The schmelges is up for sale, and it is fast approaching end of season so maybe I will just sit on the idea, and live off the new experience a little over the winter.

Mistakes and Opportunism.....

I have often quoted the late, great master Uffa Fox on his observation that a mere three mistakes in a race will afford  you third place , two ... a second, while just a single, small mistake will grant you first place. This is a real focus on how to assess your sailing and polish your performance by working on the weaknesses that lead to mistakes. However how can you take advantage of OPM - other people's mistakes??

You will see a rookie making mistakes at every point, while a middle fleet racer making a catalogue of errors - many of which are made before they even hoist sails due to poor preparation- and then you can see the top echelons damning their mistakes and doing their best to fix their problem and get into a new positioning to attack and grab places.....and that is the flip side....you are waiting for someone else to make a mistake, or coercing them into it....

...here is what gave me this inspiration for writing about something  which we actually do by second nature as we become seasoned racers confident with tactics and able to interpret what other racers are doing...
http://www.sailingworld.com/how-to/tactics-how-to-claw-back

So what are the common mistakes a competitor may make which you can capitalise on ?

Ignoring boat and rig set up prior to the race, on the water.....

1) starts....there are numerous mistakes possible in those five minutes....but thinking of a single boat you want to find and exploit within a minute of the start-

a) the early reacher. Tis is the guy who wants to keep his speed on, or is just a bit over excited, and comes in early towards the line and then starts reaching off aloing the line or parrallel to it. If he is a lone maverick then let him go over you, but if there is a little fleet of follow the leaders developing then it's game on...if you are lying 'left' of him and a little low that is. Squeeze him up to a stall being vocal and dont let him sail over you . Pin him there and his hand braking will stack the pile of boats above him too, some may bail out and go round your sterns but they ae unlikely to be able to threaten your leeward side if you are in thw last 30 secs. You should be able to command a large space to leeward to bear off into at 20 seconds depending where the line is at that time. There is an inevitable time lag for the boats stacked above you and bad wind, which may affect you but you can reach a little away and punch out with better speed than anyone else in that rack.

B) using the pinner inner boat ! in a) you are the pinner and it is in the last 30 seconds. People who have read the standard texts onn'starts' will often try to pin a rack up, but as far out as 2 minutes. The smarter ones will wait until the fleet is committesd into racking up and ragging for a typical one design or closely banded HC race. The platu 25 world champions a few years ago showed how byou can tease this pinner even more and make him and his rack-to-the-right luff even more in order to close the door on you. Dont give the game away, keep your bow high but clear of all sterns just behind the rack, as if you are probing for a space. Then with say 30 secs left ( depending on boat and conditions and how muc attention the 'pinner' is paying you) you reach off and harden up into the space thwe 'pinner' thought they had to themselves. Killer bit of chess or poker.
Essentially you treat the pinning boat as if it was a mark or the committee boat and you are in pole position to reach in and harden up to sail past it and start.

C) Bias Versus favoured side and the port tack flyer.

Quite often race committees will set a bias to the pin (port) end in championships as it makes spotting early charlie chancers much easier as the committee looking up the line of boats, thus avoiding usually not drenched in boat end starters in an unbiased or RHS biased start.

Whichever end is biased, that bias may not reflect the actual best side of the course to sail on. It is then a judgement call based on good knowledge of the beat, and preferably a practice beat to affirm the side which will pay - it can be tidal, a wind bend, convergent wind along the shore or flatter water. It can be a new wind is about to fill from one side, or there is a river mouth giving a monster lift or hit.

Biased start lines usually result in an early qeue developing because people want to buy a ticket for front row seats. It is very much the case that most often in a biased end 'stramash' there is only one boat which gets a perfect start there,  being able to stretch her bow into clean wind immediately. The bunch are locking each other in, and the boats furthest right will be bunched and have difficulty in tacking off, or will want to roll over the boats to their port side. Typically there is a big old gang with only one or two boats leading out at full speed, and the rest continuing for at least 15 seconds post start while they establish their speed or if they can tack off.

So the start can often be a slow affair at that portioin of the line, and given that the bias is actually less than 10 degrees from true wind angle to perpendicular line angle, it can be worth avoiding - a kind of gain verus risk pay off. Starting further out towards opposite end,  at high speed and thus being able to get to the side you want to be on in clear air with minimum tacks and 'ducks', can put you in the top ten and past most of the biased end mashers. Yes the 'best' starters from the bias end will be ahead of you

Given a RHS course favour in addition to a notable RHS line bias,  it can be worth starting on port tack if the fleet is early and you can stand the IDM and committee boat, with a space opening at the start from the line to the idm for you to punch out through.
WARNING! Port starts "go bad' in a messy fleet with a great ruck at the IDM which will result in other boats tacking over to port immediately thus killing your tactic, or boats charging in late on of course stb, blocking your route. Also you can give your own game away too early and someone spoils your fun by bearing down on you on stb, or tacking over to port and taking your nicely planned lane away from under your feet!!!

However port starting can be killer because they always save you one tack and usually many, many dips versus having to work over the fleet from a stb start, say half way down thenline at the gun.  What you need is an orderly, early racked up fleet wit no huge boat end bias, such that a gap will most likely open up either before the start or as the fleet moves first to gather speed and then to get  over then line. A very biased line will result in people holding onto their hand of cards and creeping out rather than falling off to get start speed because the gain in places from the bias is worth holding onto, and all and sundry will have spotted the bias and be around that end .
Port tack starts are effective for a number of reasons - Remember you are saving a tack when compared to the rest of the fleet and if lucky, into clean air immediately you clear the last stern and making up towards the layline wuthout having to duck a single boat ! Soon into the race, you are then at an apposing tacking sequence to the fleet- they are falling over onto port tack to get up to the layline juat when you want to get a bit of starboard in- thus you force many boats to duck you or tack, and then you get the luxury of choosing exacrtly when you will go over to port again.

An alternative to reaching in on port when there are too many messy boats around the committee boat and further out to the RHS, to pull it off is to start in a second row on STB after the leaders, but as near to the the boat/idm as you can, squeezing later boats to your right out and behind you. Yoou then tack to port as soon as you have enough speed and will clear the committee boat and its anchor line. Even if a couple of the early first rack of boats tack over ontop of you, you will be going to your chosen side and avoiding so many dips, and have that starboard attacking advantage when you choose to get out from a wind shadow /cover one of these boats has on you. If someone tacks immediately infront of you on this lane, then you are in no worse a position as at the leeward mark when there is a procession of boats, and you are going the right way.

Tacking sequence, line bias and favoured side of the course are all just arithmetic measures which give you enough advantage in placings to be justify the pains described. Tacking sequence with the starbord attack advantage will also play in finish line tactics.

The Beat

There are a whole load of mistakes and indeed major weaknesses in boats and theirnteams. We sail against a pretty geriatric bunch in our melges fleet, who incklude a former whitbread guy, so they can beat us usyually on strategi and boat speed. However we know they are slow in tacking duals, and we can make up many boat lenghts on them by sweating them and eventually get an ' out of sequence' effect and pin them behind or to lee of us. In HC fleets some boats are heavy and favour few tacks so forcing them into a tacking dual as the smaller, quicker accelerating boat can make them stay behind you or knock enough off their time to give you the edge.

Some boats are perpetual layline flyers....theynbare worth keeping an eye on to see if that side is paying, while very often just tacking up a text book 60  degree cone in outset keeps your optiins open, and with no tidal bias, the shifts you get right may make up for any course bias. Also you can often pin a lhs flyer out as he makes his long approach on port if you stay a little beligerantly on stb.

Other boats go onto port at the wrong time, with too many stb boats to duck . if you are going over to the rhs on port and you see oine below you it can be worth tacking into what would give them bad wind if they chose to tack to avoid a stb boat who is only a partuial threat to you.

The Windward Mark and trip mark

I include also the bear-away, gybe set in this.

The most commin mistakes are over standing and the opposite, not  'fetching the mark'. After that there is coming in on the death slot into a line of nicely paraded lay line experts with no space.

If you qre in the top echelon then often the mark is quite spaceous with the chasing bunch being a few boat lenghts back. Here a port death slot can pay, espscially if lhs pays more on the beat, or that side has kwept you in clwaner air with fewer tacks and ducks. Alternatively if you can see you are going to hit the pack then tack over with a couple of hundreds meters of layline to go. In a dinghy or sports boat this may affors you the benefit of covering the fleet whilwe beung able to tck in windshifts which the layline loibby won't be interested in. You get a feel thenif tere will be space for a later port tack entry to the layline, or if you have to go over to the layline asap to minimise damage and hope for over standers or that the 'layline lobby' are all sailing low of the mark and a nice gap is about to open due to tjhis mistake. You tack once less often and it nis likely that many will over stand so you can be cheekier by tacking ino  their bow as long as they do not have to sail too high to avoid you when you are newlyclkose hauled. Risky, but a good sailor will call it and overstanding is a very commoin, large error made by midfleet racers.

A trip mark affords you rule 18 and the chance to squeeze in on a boat sailing too high and not noticing your dive to their leeward and oveelap.

Bearing away has two mistakes you can make on- a) the wind is lifting noin the last stb tack on the layline, so a gybe set is favoured. b) folk bear away but end up reacvhing to defend their wind or try to get boat speed up.

The Reach/Run

Common mistakes are poor trim and henxce boat speed and as above, over defending air and sailing a banana curve with much extra distance to the mark, and a deep slow angle evwntually to get down to it. Abother is doing a two gybe only leeward leg. This exposes the lazy boat to both missing windshifts and also being vulnerable to starboard ' ambushes' near the leeward mark, forcing them into a poor position on the mark AND letting another boat close to them through into the clear ahead at the zone. A pretty good tactic then is to keep the boat in free air by gybing away in stead of luffing oponenets, sailin tjhe best vmg in the cleanest air thereafter, and gybin on the favourablwe wind shifts or to stay in anblock or band of wind. Coming in on starboard near thwe 3 boat zone is a biut of a killer tactic-you have the basic rule 10 right and are rule 18 overlapped on the entire fleet, with the right to gybe at any point in the zone until you are 'at the mark'. However it relies on very comeptent gybing, a consumate drop and a well executed harden up to be worth doing.

Another rally common mistake at the leeward mark is people charging in too fast right up the sterns of a pile of boats. In light or even medium airs this can be a veritable car park, worth sailing round the entire outside of. In more windnit meams you will be on the stern of a boat, potentiually going slower than you and potentially tacking right on top of you if you are forced to tack off his stern line. Better to slow te boat dowmn at the 3 boat zone, ealry drop , and even xcentre the main, and keep a nice rounding which you can either do a good tack at speed to clear your wind from the procession on port ahead of you, or take a big pinching luff wit your tight entry and try to sail then on a higher lane than the procession.

Gear Changes

An extremely common mistake at venues prone to unstable conditions or a rising sea breeze, is that many boats fail to make the gear changes in sail setting early enough.

This can even happen before the start, especially in yachts which carry several different genoas and jibs on board. Stick to your sail makers recommendations for max speed, and your own experience of what you hold given your crew wieght for that wind. If everyone is mashing around with No.1s up while it is really No.2 weather, then quietly get your No.2 out, but dont raise it until a minute or a bit more to go to the gun. Also while on the beat, you can look to force overpowered boats with big genoas to tack away from you on STB, and loose time in their inevitably sub optimal tacks.

The second beat

I blogged before about line to windward mark bias versus couirse, windward mark to leeward mark side bias. Also you may be in a new wind by the tåsecond beat or there may be a new area of bend or convergence up the course which were to leeward of a mid set start. It is important to react to conditions and what paid last time may not pay this time.

A big mistake even some good boats make is påclean getting lazy and complacent on beat #2. Being awake and determined can get you ahead of many boats. "We're no.2, we try harder".

Subsequent Mark Roindings

If you have worked your way into the top third of the fleet by a good start or ysing all these advantage-McInroe steals, then te marks will be less busy and you cam be more daring in terms of your approaches

However port starting can be killer because they always save you one tack and usyually many, many dips versus having to work over the fleet from a stb start, say half way down thenline at the gun.  What you need is an orderly, early racked up fleet wit no huge boat end bias, such that a gap will most likely open up either before the start or as the fleet moves over then line. Remember you are saving a tack and if lucky, into clean air immediately you clear the last stern and making up towards the layline wuthout having to duck a single boat ! Soon into this, you are then at an apposing sequence to the fleet- tey are falling over onto port taxck to get up to the layline juat when you want to get a bit of starboard in- thus you force many boats to duck you or tack, and then you get the luxury of choosing exacrtly when you will go over to port again.

Finish Line Tactics

For some odd reason, especially on wednesday night amateur set ups, the finish line often has an enormous bias which is maybe three or four boat legnths to one side or the other, ddw, which means in simple trigonometry, you have to sail a country mile further to even go over mid line, let alone if you go to the wrong end. It can be difficult to spot from  a distance if the line is outside the usual race course, but the skill in spotting the favoured end is worth the difference between accepting your fate with the boats around you coming in infront, or grabbing a grins all round couple of places in a coup d'etat at the last second!

Tacking sequence with other boats near you is then the key on a bias finish line, and can make up a few places on an unbiased line. The trick is to force other boats to sail behind you in port/stb duels, and to make less tacks to complete the finish sequence of tacks (when it is a beat of course! But the same is true of gybing to a leeward finish line, where a last minute starboard approach on something construable as 'proper course' )

On a left hand bias windward finish, usually the 'pin' , then it is important not to overstand and to hold starboard from as far out as possible. It does not matter if you understand a little bit because you have control until the last second and given there is no boat immediately to your rhs, you can tack to port to cross the line right on the bouy.

For a boat end bias, then you can do the same, with a long tack in on STB towards the layline on that end. However you have more to play with and you want to actively psych out the competition by getting onto starboard to attack them, shouting starboard early as you approach them....  or while on STB, either breaking a cover or tacking off the stern to someone when you are a well back from the line,  to make them feel you have seen an advantage and getting them to tack also to port. You then can attack on starboard again. Given your tacks are better and they are a little more tired out than you, this can draw them into a fruitless tacking duel where they loose boat speed and distance to the line as against you and you make up the boat lengths which you need to beat them.

Protesting

Finally one good way of penalising people for their mistakes and sometimes arrogance, is to protest them in the race and take it to the room if you have a good case if they do not take turns out on the course. This can be a mark touching, a port stb infringement or a more subtle rule 13-rule 17 infringement. Many boats wont bother to read the protest notice board, and turning up alone with a good case and preferably a witness boat can earn a nice DSQ to the chagrin of the offender

Pointing to Problems with Pointing

I'm sure I'be blogged on this before, so this is a kind of reblogg spawned by some discussions of late of what hinders some boats in their performance.

so what do people mainly complain about?

Some people complain or observe from outside, that a given boat just does not sail as high on the wind when close hauled as her rivals in OD or 'near peers' in handicap fleetas.

Alternatively people get frustrated with pointing in  individual races, often during weather and a sea state they are not used to. Or it seems the boat points well only in light or only in heavy airs.

All of these issues can be examined and overcome by considering the following blocks as where the problem lies, amd that it may take knowledge and actions in all thjree to match your peers on the race course or exceed them.

1) Rig and Sails

2) Running Rigging and Sail Trim

3) Skill set and Style of Sailing that boat

1 a. Rig Tune- Small changes matter.

A lot of mid fleet sailors really don't bother to alter their rig tension throughout an entire season. There are a very few boats which you can get away with this, and any regatta machine will benefit greatly from judicous use of spanners and screwdriver shafts on the bottle screws.

Why bother adjusting the rig, it is in a nice stable setting from which we can trim the sails for all conditions ? I used to think this, and in fact given uncertain conditions ahead,  you can set the rig on an average set of tensions, mast bend and triangle dimensions fore and aft. Or you can set a very stiff set up for heavier weather you start in, and then ease sail settings out to compensate if the wind dies.

Howevver think of this to get you out of this comfort zone : how much difference does two inches of trimming make to the jib or mainsheet? It can make all the difference of course between a mediocre trimmed sail and an optimally trimmed sail.

In terms of pointing, this is very prominent if there is a degree of adjustability as with most racing designs. Without a backstay on a fractional rig,  the lenght of just the forestay can alter the rake markeably, and move the whole centre of effort on the  sail forward and back. Just a few inches makes a big difference because of the shorter chord length at the top there relative to that small change, and how the COE then alters around the balance point with the keel and the foresail. 

Think of the advantage of getting that just right foe your boat for the conditions that day ! It is like dialling in an extra bit of magic, in the same way a slight in or out on the sheets makes the boat go sweeter.

Lenghtening the forestay will add more rake and to a point where you loose this benefit because the leech of the mainsail can no longer be trimmed taught enough for beating, or the backstay will no longer tighten any more and thus the forestay just becomes slack, and sags off to lee rather than jut allowing the mast to have more rake.

On a fractional rig, slipping out an inch of forestay may result in several times that distance that the mast top moves backwards, pivoting on its base. I would say that on a typical sports boat you are looking to add or subtract 3-4 inches each way from a mid wind mid point. On a fifty footer it could be several feet each way.

On a Masthead rig, the length of the forestay and the dimensions of the fore triangle can actually be very wrong. I sailed on a MH Figaro II which had terrible poining issues - the boat just stalled on both sails. What was needed was a longer setting on the forestay and that the mast foot, rake and prebend be adjusted, but only very slightly with the foot going forward about an inch. The end effect was the correct rake and tension on the genoa luff. The mast top probably moved back less than a foot from its original bad position, while the lower and mid mast were a little forward, just a pinch, and than sorted out the issue by in large (although I would say and like to hear from any masthead Figaro owners, if the boat is a low and fast pointer rather than sticking its nose into the wind like say a J boat or a Corby)

Now you have the mindset, i will let you find out how to tune the fore-aft triangle and adjust the shrouds on the sides and any other controls like chocks, by refring tunijng guides, your sailmaker or someone who is expert in your type of boat.

2) Running Rigging And Sail Trim

On most boats there is one piece of rigging which is part of the standing rigging more or less, but is actually runnijng rigging ie adustable underway, and that is  the backstay. (,fancy boats may habe hydraulic forestays or mast rams adjustable underway)

On all boats really, tightening te backstay underrway will increase the rake by taking up slack in the forestay, and the whole mast pivots around its base or a low point at least, 'in column' as the say After this point when the forestay is taught, the backstay will induce bend in the mast like pulling a bowstring. Inducing bend flattens the sail and opens the leech, but also can move the COE further back a little more as it does so, than was achieved at maximum pivoting ie rake.

Opening the leech though means that the top of the sail 'falls off' and the lever pushing the boat to windward is reduced disporoportuionately to the sail area up there, because there is always a higher wind velocity up there, wind exerts force increasing by its cube, and the sail is a little more twisted usually before you open it more, creating a power vector pointing further forward than the lower sail- all of which basically mean that the top third of the sail does more than a third of the effort in 'twistng' the boat round its keel as a pivot in the water, and upto windward when close hauled.

The mainsail produces this 'weather helm' which is at its most noticeable when you broach on a reach, or when it is windy and you do not ge your foresail trimmed in quickly coming out a tack, or when of course, you are overpowered and need to twist the sail off to depower the top.

Exacerbating weather helm on many 'tonne' dericed racing yachts, especially the David Thomas series from the 1970s, is particular hull shape where more heel makes a lot more weather helm as te boat heels, gains a loknger water line on the lee side and wants to roundbup to windward.

Also here we getinto the realms of leeway and what VMG really means. See the note below basicaøly though, the bearing the bow points at on the beat in a keel boat or older dinghy is not quite the actual vector. Leeway increases drastically when flow is detached from the keel and rudder on  beat, so not going fast enough, heeling toomuch, or being screwed up to windward and oscillating all serve to let the boat slip sideways, despite the bow 'pointing' admirably high!

So backstay helps controll the rake underway, and also reduces weather helm after the mast begins to be bent. Many designs of sail boat benefit from very active use of the backstay, it beijng trimmed often as much as the mainsheet and maybe more, because thw effects of moving upb to optimal rake, and being able to then open the top of the sail while the lower two thirds are still driving hard is the best method for that boat in given conditions.

Now you are left with sail trim amd the key control esåpecially on fractional rigs is the mainsheet, whic most people can get right if they have tell tales ! In lighter winds on many boats say underr 6 knts, it can be best for VMG on the beat, the true meausre of gopd pointing, tonlet the top tell tale fly 90%+ of the time, then at 6-14 knits say, flying 75%, 16-22 50% and higher speeds flying over 90% again.

The final judgement is down then to the feel of the loading on the helm and yourbtagret speed verus other boats or on the dials. A lot of modern boats have very neutral rudders when pointing optimally at best VMG, whilenoøder deaigns often need more than 5 degrees of rudder angle pulled on to be giving optimal VMG. Many top racing boats either keep a very close eye on the competiton or if they have instruments use them to check boat speed against a polar chart-look this and VMG up yourself via googling or in books.

Jib-genoa cannot be forgotten. They counter balance the weather helm lever effect by levering the othernside of the pivot point down the keel (The CLR) , YET  they power up the main sail such that the main produces more weather helm.  Too much power can come from too big a sail if there is a wardrobe of sails, or that the sail is tpo deep and too 'hooked' in on the leech- it needs twisting off or changing down to a smaller sail.

This is all within the scope of other sail-tuning guides, books, googling....but the one comment I will add is that the jib cars are often at arbitary lateral positions on the deck on cruiser racers, or placed at a conpromise on some race boats even. Then you have the opportunity to explore in-hauling or even out-hauling the sail in order to power up the main in a narrower slot, or depower by widening it. They work in the same way the traveller altera the angle of the main sail.

To make a point relating to my blog on key areas: very often the main issue with pointing is that you have not spottes or executes thwe right gear change, or in reaspect of rig and sail teim knowledge, you have started out in the wrong gear.

The most common single problem i have seen on boats with relatively poor pointing in getting the gear right before sailing, is too short a forestay setting thua not enough rake in thw mast. Conversely, too long a setting for the wind conditions will open up te top of the mai too much and ruin pointing.
main issue with pointing

3) skills and Style of Boat And Sailing

In terms of skill combined with style of sailing requireed to make a specific boat point optomally, a key thing to learn is speed-before-height. You have to reach a high enough boat speed for your foils to be 'flying' in the water ( keel and rudder, not hydro-foils !) beforee you can then ease the boat up to highest pointing.

Another style element is steering more or holding a course more and sheeting. This is a bit of an art form more than anything else, but in an OD fleet you will see a domijnant, successful methodology and in my experience it is a combination which varies with the wind stregnth. It is very mucb an experience oriented thing though. Worth itas own blog, and in terms of pointing issues, much of this is actually avoided by covering rig tune and gear changes, which shouild reduce the amoint of trimmijng to be done, or make that trimmijng more effective.

Finally some boats just do not like to be pointed very high....any high performamce upwind p,abijng dijnghy, some heavy boats and some light sporty boats. Take the j92 for example, it has better VMG when the bow is pointinng lower. As mentioned above, a lot of this is to do wit what is happening out of sight, with the keel and rudder known togwter as the "foils."  hullshape also has a part to llay, along with overall sailplan and the pivot centre (CLR). The j92 is a very good example becasuse it i mostly saiøed in handicap fleets aginst hweavier, cruiser-racers, and it needs to have a lower angle than rival boats because VMG is then optmal. It is much easier in a one design fleet to see what style pays, but even then you may need to adjust to the weignt you carry beinv eigber asode of the fleet norm.

The Learning Curve in Sailing- Summary from Last Blog

I had a PM from a sailing instructor who thought I had cut a short story long in my last blogg, and was very keen to have a bite size version.

I think we even have to step back a little here and think about what a sailing and racing learning curve is composed of and how it may appear:

What shape is the learning curve in sailing from junior oppi sailor to being Knighted Sir Ben Ainslee??

What are the building blocks of our learning, and should we look to polish these all the time, each in their own case, or to deconstruct them and reassemble as a whole? 

Marginal Gains vs Diminishing Returns vs Clutching at Straws at the Impass

When many sailors meet an impass in their learning and performance, they often miss part of the big picture and instead focus on minor tweaks,

  They are really not aware of the gap to a major part of their learning curve and they try in some area to run before they have bothered to walk in all the key areas.

Very experienced sailors can focus on the 'marginal gains' approach. My saying then "it is all about the basics, and then there are the basics to consider"....rings true within this blogg too.

 Sailing has few tricks, it is nearly all about mastering the obvious basics and learning some of the important theory which can be readily applied to your sailing. (rig tuning, wind shifts, tidal wind vectors, rule situations and so on etc)

The only short cuts to improving your sailing I can recommend are by going to a sailing school, and sailing dinghies, with the combination being really the best to inform your keel boat sailing, or correct your dinghy sailing errors. One hour under instruction or in a dinghy is worth eight hours helming a keel boat. 

Steep, Abrupt Steps on the Learning Curve

To my mind the learning curve has some steep sections followed by practicing at that level for a while, before you move on to learn something  new, and in doing so move onto another steep section. 

These are what I can summate as > 

1) boat preparation and rigging, 

2) sail set-boat-balance-trim-course-steering ( the classic six of learning to sail and remembering to check under way) 

3)  the key four key manoevres- luffing, bearing away, tacking and gybing

4)  tactics & rules, 

5) wind and tide strategy

6) .......and also you can choose to take as either its own entity or as something which goes across all these :team work and the dynamics of the team.

These contain then all the basics of sailing which have to be learned to a level of comeptency across the board, in order for you to continue on the learning curve in an optimal way.

.....If you are missing or lacking skills in just one building block, then this becomes the weakest link in your sail-game! 

Further up the learning curve, it may be one of these areas which requires special focus in order for you to enjoy a good increment in performance.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Thinking About It All- Mastery Again and the Plateau

The key elements of sailing are then a bit like building blocks, but at some points along the learning curve you have to see them as joined-up-writing and be able to practice and race at the level you are competent to. This is then the plateau stage as the proponents of training long periods without apparent gain advocate.  

Communicate to your crew that this is a time for practice and enjoying sailing at the level you are at, and just doing your best without trying to bust a gut so to speak. Consider a series or even whole season as a plateau period. Learn to be content with that!

Accepting our little lot in the world on this plateau, we also demand of ourselves that we perform at this level with fewer mistakes. Practice makes perfect eventually, but also you can consider that repetition irons out mistakes for a base level, which then becomes the foundation or launch pad for taking the next, steep learning section of the curve.

Raising Your Game Means Opening Your Mind 

To raise your game after a period of  'plateau-ing' then you need to do this consciously with planned learning goals and activities which will help meet these, like getting a coach on board or going on a course. Also you must open your mind to new experiences and to going back-to-basics again.

Goal setting for the new steep bit of the curve then should comprise both analysis of your weaknesses from the season and any external input, and also some going out and looking what is available, affordable and do-able for you and your team.

Much of all of this means above all one thing which boat owners can struggle with - swallowing your pride. It may take the owner of a 40 foot regatta machine to go back to sailing a wayfairer at a sailing school in order for them to make that next step up the curve in their ability and results.

Managing your Boat Owner! Crew Perspective on 'Coaching and Cunniving"

Currently I am not a boat owner, for better or for worse, and nor am I any longer in the DOPB up status (driving other peoples boats)

Crewing is both a happy place to be ....void of much responsibility , financial drain and other stress......while it is also an exaperastingly frustrating place to be if you are as good or better a helm, tactician and "sail maker" as the owner/driver.

I was lucky once to have an owner who often said "Drivers drive!" meaning that helms concentrate on boat speed and let a.n.other call tactics. Usually he was truist to his word when someone else was driving it has to be said.....after all an owner-driver wants to get their own personal best on the boat and not have Russel Coutts driving it first over the line, at least not every wednesday eve'.

I have come to my favourite type of boat often - that is the boat type in terms of dynamic on board - I much prefer sailing with a 'developer' team than with an established or worse, rock star scratch crew team. However sometimes you cannot be that lucky, as in my current local club which, to be honest, I have given up hope on meeting anyone who is open to being taught anything by the likes of me. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth a little on tactical errors, boat handling fails, misinterpretations of the rules and from outset poor strategy, if you want to get out and sail a bit.

In many situations, either with the stubborn owner or developer owner, you as experienced helm when crewing are in a position to advise them.  However you can often liken this to guiding an elephant with an elastic band. Sometimes the critical mass will come with you willingly, other times it won't budge, but either way, when you pull too hard on the elastic band it snaps! Hey presto you are flicked! Either further up the boat to the pointy wet end, or for a really early bath before you go racing .....ie services not required. Mistakes may be obvious to you, but correcting them takes some subtle diplomacy - ego is at stake here for the majority of owner-drivers.

The subtle line is in not trying or appearing to be taking over command........ or at least not letting the helm think that they are being taken over in their erstwhile decision making and own comfortable learning curve...... or well dug ditch of bad performance for that matter. I was once called to a bar meeting by the owner of a boat, concewrning their feeling there were two skippers on board and that being one too many, so frankly I should tone down a little. I thought about it after the beer sank, and thought about what the owner needed to learn and what his current team could offer, and bailed out. He was a bit further back on the learning curve than at the point when you know you need to listen to better sailors to make that little quantum leap up the fleet. And that was fine, I then got on board a great J109 where the owner was right in the sweet spot for learning and practicing, and running a team with fun in mind.

That J109 owner/driver later wrote me a personal reference for jobs about how I performed in a tightly knitted team> his comment in the first paragraph was " He is clearly very experienced, and could have taken over control of the boat , but rather than that he offered his knowledge and fitted into the team in a very comfortable way"

Developer boat/teams are a joy. There is nothing better in this world than hauling a boat up from mid to back fleet, up into the top 10 and then grabbing some wins! Much better than going out with a gang of big headed bitches on the rail and winning most of the time, and getting all upset about losing once in a while or mistakes that new boy made that day.

Stick-in-the mud owner-drivers who run 'dog boats' are by no means a lost cause though. However remember that elephant! They need actually to be taken to that place which maketh them a developer boat and team.  How you get there can be very subtle, but really it is down to one-to-one talks with the helm and not the blame-storming debriefing over the bar room table with the whole team. Especially avoid the 'good leiutenant' , usually the main sheet guy who will spank you down if he is within earshot when you start nurturing learning ideas in the helm.

There are different ways and means> be cautious if you are committed to the season and maybe a nationals with them, because you will get flicked if you are not diplomatic and managing your own expectations. Alignment is the key here. Talks about talks, setting out the protocol for maybe learning some more. Placing physcial boat fixes down the list a little, lady luck off the board and introducing the idea that helming and crew coordination is as good a place as any to start at. Sailing with friends can be actually more like this than you at first thought, with more than just your slot on the rail at stake. Be patient, polite, but a little persistent when you get the helm's ear alone. Talk objectively about manoevres and wind shifts, "maybe there is something to be learned there.....why not  look at this general aspect.....could there be some boat legnths and places to be won by focuusing on this...."

If you have a choice in which boat you sail on and have happened upon a dog which is otherwise a well turned out example of the white GRP species, then you can be far more confrontational with the skipper. Here the trick is to be highly critical of what is going on, a little objective but also quite harsh when it comes to the central dogma here- the old dog needs to learn new tricks. Don't suggest yourself for the job at first, wait to be invited otherwise you will become percieved as the arrogant management consultant on the transom, getting everyones back up and  riding for a fall if results dont get better.

I sailed five seasons with a dog boat where the helm just would not learn and never did that boat get any higher in the placings than when we had a 'pre/olympic' coach on board for the nationals down at Cork ROI, only a year into my tenure as admittedly the apprentice. From my point of view now, I see pretty clearly that I laid all the building blocks in that one design boat for the rest of my 'career' but also much more importantly than skills per se, I came to the last season with a thirst to really learn the next level, and of course jumped boat to move up to my new trajectory on the learning curve.

Infact that helm would often do the exact opposite of what his mainsheet guy recommended or myself or anyone else commented. His thing was power and decision making, absolute, and he only really wanted information when he asked for it. He was a company director and I guess his management style on shore was much the same, being somewhat dictatorial and overly assertive. He  could be very kind and show some really reflective moments, but by in large he often blamed 'lady luck' or some misdemeanor on the race course for the boat's mid to bottom fleet ills. Fifteen years later the fleet has dwindled as that class ages, and guess what, they are still mid to bottom of the eight to ten boats which turn up now in the regional OD meets.

As in business, to be an on board management consultant, a lot is about protocol and permissions. In outset there is often an objective definition of the problems or shortcomings, SORRY 'Challenges' I meant to say. This can get a little emotional. Later it should be  followed by a discussion and then some formulisation on if help is needed and what form the consultant will deliver. Often consultants have a very specific brief, but as I found out when I worked as a hired in consultant, that missive very often spans the whole team dynamic in a small enterprise. Consultants are experts on elephants with rubber bands. Once the elephant agrees to go somewhere, maybe a few steps at first, then they can often keep themselves on the payroll and end up a lot further down the road with the beast than the great walloping paciderm first suspected it would be lead!!

On a boat this translates to establishing that new learning has to take place, to then bend the owners ear more specifically on a couple of weak areas, sorry potential areas for improvements, and then play that out as a team in terms of implementing things. I have been hoisted by my own petard here, by recommending that someone take tactics on the j109 while the owner-driver concentrated on speed, meaning yours truly........ but being presented with a slighly more experienced regatta bitch as a new crew member!!! It worked very well, and the helm let them make several mistakes, particularly on the down wind angles with the assy' which they had not sailed, such that they learned from their mistakes and to listen to the folk who knew the boat better on the rail!

Taking up on that point, you can cut your own throat by coaxing the owner into taking on board a new management consultant or reworking the crew altogether. You may appear an impudent rebel and thanks for the advice, we will seek help elsewhere. One way round that is getting you and the owner out on another boat. It could be you go sail a dinghy you are used to helming, or that you and the owner crew on board a boat which wins regularly if they will have you or swap some bodies for that night. Another alternative safe consultancy approach is to travel to a sailing school or have a sailmaker , instructor or the like on board for some training and a race or two, safe in the knowledge that they are temporary hired in guns for your boat!!

The first step on the learning curve may well be start lines, which is the very best place to begin to hike up the steepness of the learning curve. Boat speed and safety as a given, starts could be ideal,  but then again the real thing is all about getting the ball rolling> ie the helm accepting that new learning must happen, and that gains will be made for a little bit of pain. Starting is my biggest challenge personally, so I may well choose say wind strategy and shift pattern as a place to begin hiking up that curve and breaking down that comfort zone.  Once you have moved them, and when you get results or atleast a gain on the water, then there should be an all round back patting for the whole team and a reinforcement of what made the difference, what have we learned, what will we repeat. Then the next block of learning can be facilitated, kind of the floor is lubricated for sliding up and taking on the next challenge.

Success is very measurable in yacht racing luckily. Small changes in actions and tactics can have large and permanent profits in where you place yourself in the fleet. On the race course while underway, you can begin to break placings down further "live" by discussing how many boat places you are winning. Positive reinforcement. Building confidence in the helms own mind that change is good, change works.

Boat lengths are an ideal little pay back mechanism to use. It can apply most of all to the absolute key areas an "improver" boat can make most gains in> namely, the Start, the windshifts, the roundings and tactics for laylines, bouys and the finish line. Wind strategy over a course means more trial and error, and more information gathering and I would maybe take that with some caution later once some other areas were tackled. However at a local venue, such as in SF bay, round the Isle of Wight or the East Patch on the clyde, there are some pronounced wind bends due  to the shape of the coast in relation to prevailing or common wind directions and stregnths. If you dont hit them right when the fan is on from that way, then you wont get especially the beat to work for you. So boat speed being equal and starts being passable, then aim for the sweet spot where the wind bend heads and gives the best gain on the new tack as an example of what consultants like to call internally a "quick win" from the "lowest hanging fruit"

You can of course do exceptional modifications to prove the point. For example starting late at the boat end, perhaps on port even, and then sailing high and right of the fleet to look at what is going on.  Learning the concept of burn/time at starts and practicing it in repetitive training sessions, in different wind strengths- how does it go in the race, starting with a clear runway first and then mixing it with other boats? The biggie though in exceptional modifications is either driving yourself (high risk!) or getting a helm from a better boat in the OD or a very similar HC boat. Helming yourself is best introduced in traning sessions, or perhaps if you have established permission and know you are competent, yes taking a start or a leeward mark or just a few tacks or gybes on the helm.

A final wee approach is to set yourself up to sail on a better boat, and bring back some tips. Fifth columnist type stuff. Special, privelidged information. Some of it may be a complete fabrication, it  just sounds better if it was told as a white lie as to what the other boat do right or differently, but you knew all along. Once again it is about permission to get the helm to change their attitude to the learning curve and to try something concrete out, probably just one thing at a time.  That is really as good a summary to the whole blog as I can give in one scentence.

Sailing in Waves, Learning From Mistakes

If we want to consider sailing with finesse, then why not look at some points we know we are personnally weak within and sail with the opposite of finesse, clumsiness. Helming upwind in waves has been a bug bear of mine over the years, but I have by in large cracked it now.

Finesse actually begins off the water with judging the conditions for the day and rigging the boat for the conditions.

Many keel boat racers, especially outside one design in cruiser-racers, really miss a big trick especially if they have a fractional rig. You can also bet the lower half of a one design fleet are also sailing with the wrong rig settings.

If you are going to be sailing in choppy estuary conditions, which can get really steep despite being only maybe a meter and a half high, or if you are sailing in a big sea then the first thing to check is if your rig is stable. A friend of mine bought a j109 rigged and left it (against most advice) rigged over the winter. We sailed an early summer race in 30 knts with me trimming main, and I had to fight the thing the whole way, even when we put a single reef in. I felt the rig later, just the outer pair and they were soft. He asked Norths who had rigged the boat and they said it had last been sailed in light winds and they had slackened off the rig.

Rig

When you know you are going to be beating to windward in a choppy or rough sea, then the first thing to check is actually the forestay. A key sail setting you want to achieve is being able to bring the draft of the jib forward, which you need to have a tight forestay to achieve.

Also as mentioned you want to stabilise the rig, and this means  by having both the fore/aft triangles taught ie good tension, as well as the shrouds being in enough tension to hinder side to side instability. It wil surprise you how much a rig can begin to bounce around when confronted with both gustier conditions and a steep chop to sail in. What seemed like a nicely setting rig in flat water,  becomes a shakey flagpole! The accelration, decceleration and impact  shock from the hull all put vastly more dynamic loading and  unloading pressure on the mast when sailing in 'significant' waves than in small waves or  flat water.

The third reason for considering forestay first, can be very critical in some boats, is that you want to reduce the amount of weather helm in the boat by bringing the tip of the mast forward a little.  In boats like the Melges 24 and the Etchells 22, the mast tip only needs to be five centimeters wrong each way to really affect the realtive performance of the boat in a fleet, or to give unwanted weather helm in waves.

It is usually worth measuring the forestay length and very precisely on a dinghy and using a Loos tension gauge and then checking against class rules firstly so it is not to short or long, and then recommended settings. Some forestays are very standardised, like the sigma 33 or the Beneteau 25 Platu so you can then go by the position of the tensioner be it a rack and pin or a bottle screw, or on some dinghies and small yachts, a combination. Some boats like the Melges 24 have a through mast system with the bottle screw under deck, others like the HOD35 have a hydraulic forestay, while some others like the j35 have a mast ram which tensions the whole rig by pumping the mast up against it. However as mentioned you want to avoid weather helm for sailing in waves, so checking the forestay setting is worth it before you pump the hydraulics.

If you are not sure about the desired setting, then get a sail maker to go out with you and take some photos up the jib vertically to then see how the jib halyard tension helps move the deepest part of the sail, the max draft position. In waves you want it forward to on or just before the first third of the sail's chord legnth ie as the crow flies from tack to clew, the deepest point is at one third of the way in. 

You may need to experiment, but a hard forestay will give you good 'knuckle' in the jib for sailing deep and steering with power in the sail, while also stabilising the rig.

The next rig to consider is the backstay accordingly, which on some boats where it is running pretty freely on a purchase system, will definetly affect rig stability and weather helm. On many small to midsized boats with fairly bendable rigs you will find that the backstay will first tighten the whole rig up before it induces any bend in the mast. It will also move the tip of the mast backwards if the forestay has any give realtive to it. Once on harder, in a fractional rig it will bend the top 1/3rd of the mast, thus opening and flatteing that portion of the sail, useful for both depowering and inducing twist. On mast head boats, if it is powerful and the rest of the rig is well tensioned, it will bend the mast all the way or where ever it is likely to bend to which is worth talking to a sail maker or other owners about to avoid unwanted effects !

On boats with running backstays, in fact the same goes for the forestay at least- too long a forestay will mean that you first draw the rig back over long before you induce any bend in the rig. So if  you sail say an X99 or a First Class Europe and you get bad weather helm when it is windy, then try shortening your forestay before you sail. Then the runners will be stabilising the rig as soon as they are on, and progressively bending the mast more than they rake it backwards as they are 'beasted up'.The backstay should not be forgotten because it wil help open the top of the sail, but also importantly it will stabilise the rig during tacks when the runners are released.

With sailing dinghies you have the advantage of no back stay while also being able to load up the rig on dry land. Here the mainsheet acts like a backstay and both stablises the rig, induces rake and increases bend if it is powerful and the rig is pliable. It can be much easier to fiind the draft positions and the rake on land, but also it can be trickier to set them just right because just a centimeter at the mast head can make a big difference!!

Shrouds are the next thing to set for the conditions, and as mentioned these should be set for firstly rig stability, and secondly any pre-bend for winds of over 9 knots in dinghies and about 12-14 in sport boats and yachts. With adjustable swept back spreaders, it is best to both refer to the tuning guide and also make measurements of the prebend, the rake and the forestay as well as noting the tension on a loos gauge.

Too much prebend makes the mast notably shorter in chord legnth to the hounds and the forestay can become slacker, countering your earlier attempts. This means that the boat uynder way when mainsheet and back stay are applied will develop too much rake and may have an unstable forestay (laterally)

Also too much prebend in waves is bad because it can flatten the mainsail too much and you can loose power you actually need for punching through waves.

Running Rigging (sheets, cars etc)

The rig now you have set up for stability, correct rake, a tight luff on the jib and correct depth for the wind strength but deepened a little to add power.

Now there are three main things to achieve while sailing upwind in waves

i) "knuckle" in the jib, ie depth well forward
ii) An open slot
iii) Twist in the main sail and jib

Knuckle means that you will be able to saw around in the waves, steering through a good 5' range or more while the jib keeps drawing. Really fast IAACC boats and light no 1 genoas on regatta machines are designed to have a more efficient shape with the draft further back and often relatively shallower and this is not good for a dinghy or cruiser-racer out in a 5 foot chop of wind against tide! Their fine entry as it is called, a sharp cutting angle, needs to be sailed in a much smaller range of angles of attack to the wind, and the sail will stall if the helmsman started to steer outside the 'groove' for those settings.

The open slot is important for a few reasons, but it firstly helps the air simply pass between it , especially as you plunge down waves or are hit by gusts. Also as you steer through the waves it means the main will not stall so often on its luff. Finally it does depower the 2+2=5 effect for the two sails.

Twisting the jib by drawing the sheet cars backwards, and easing out a bit on the sheet opens the slot up a bit, but also if you have inhaulers you can slip these out. For sailing in waves you want to consider using a smaller foresail in order to achieve an open slot, a good knuckle and matching main twist.

The main is then twisted off at the top, with even use of the traveller taken to the mid point in up to force 4 or more. Twist reduces healing while increasing forward power as the sails are pointing forward more. Correspondingly it decreases pointing by the top leverage effect being reduced, which is also desirable, but it does set a max height to which you can point before losing the effect of the sail. Top tell tale then should fly all the time in any difficult waves.
It is a hard ask of a main trimmer, but on some boats in waves it can pay to play the main sheet rather than the traveller in waves because you keep the boat powering while reducing heel in the gusts. Traveller dumps depower the boat and it can take some time before the helm feels the groove is established afterr a dump in a gust especially with just a couple of adverse wave hits.

In a dinghy too, you may find that having a really hard kicker, vang sheeting as it is called, can be counter productive in waves and you are better sailing lower and with more power, using the main sheet to depower while holding a low course through the waves.

Helming

Once you have actually given rig setting a good tweak and discussed this, observed it, measured it and so on it is time to get out and try it out. You may find that sailing your dinghy on lake chop now becomes a lot easier, and when you first race your progress is much better despite the bow looking like it is pointing lower.

In small chop or soft longer waves then you may find the boat now punches through and you more or less hold a course to the jib luff and sail away from your previous position in the fleet. Suddenly as it has done with me, you get the feeling for good boat speed and no longer fighting the boat.

As the chop gets bigger and we start to climb notably and slam down the other side of waves, then we need to use more helm to steer us through.

Generally percieved wisdom is to luff up until the bow passes the crest of the wave and then fall off. The falling off achieves two things, firstly it reaccelerates you with most of the boats water line in the water and secondly you avoid slamming down into the trough and having a lot of water resistance as you dig into the next wave.

However this is not always the case. Sometimes we see that the current wave ahead is small and we can keep the boat pointing. This is partly what Frank Bethwaite talks about in 'aim for the flatter parts' but also that you have an advantage to gain if you can keep going a little steeper uphill when the waves allow you to so to speak. You may indeed find that you are in low-fast punching mode with little active steering until every magical 'seventh' wave which you then have to steer the bow up and over, avoiding stalling in the trough.

Your rig should be set then to allow for all this helming without much sheeting if any in a keel boat, and little in a dinghy. There should be more to gain in having all your crew hiking out in the middle of the boat on a keel boat, or in using your body weight (look up Kinetics) and helming in a dinghy to make the split second movements to get ontop of the wave and off it at a lower angle.

Trim and Balance

As mentioned for dinghy sailors there are some advanced ways of moving around in the Laser in particular which help reduce use of rudder while increasing actually power in the mini pumps upwind.

Putting that to the advanced learning side, in general all boats have the same principles.

In lighter chop which means waves which  you do not slam into, rather nudge through, you actually want to trim the bow down a little more than usual because this then allows you to pierce the waves without shaking the rig, while also the wave exits the boat with less drag from the stern and the rudder. This is not mentioned in any text book I have read, but is to be found in a couple of Norths tuning /sailing guides I have seen. It applies to most all boats, but the effect wears off first in dinghies of course as the wave size increases.  In terms of sail sheeting and so on, you still want to achieve more power as the waves are creating more resistance and exit drag than flat water. Essentially you want the boat to punch along without rocking.

As the chop gets bigger then you need to bring the bow up out of the water more, and make sure that you have all the weight you can have around the centre of the boat over the keel area such that the weight oscillates least and contributes most to stability and forward motion. In boats like the Mumm 36, you actually have to trim the bow up quite soon and this can mean a crew hike out aft of the helm and main man. The 36 has a low volume bow section, flaring up with reserve bouyancy,  so it gets deep quicker than boats with rounder bow entries and more even volume .

Remember that the combined effects of bouncing up and down and side to side rotation for hiking crew can mean that they get sea  sick or at least fatigued. So dont be ofer ambitious with your 'active sailing through the waves plan' as you do not want a naseaous crew at the weather mark. Remember twist and back stay to keep the boat balanced laterally as much as you can.

Unfortunetly as the wind builds it tends to get less stable so you then need to sheet more actively to stop too much heel. Some boats can have a very useful effect in waves from just backstay, which can be used as a fine tune for heeling and pointing as you go up wind.  Other boats will eventually need a lot of playing of the traveller or main sheet or both, so it is worth getting the main sheet man to come into the cockpit from the rail.

As a rule of thumb I would say as the waves get to slamming size then go low and fast, and just take the odd opportunity to sheet in or let the back stay out in order to point up when there are smaller waves ahead of your bow. As the sea gets bigger, so too become your helming movements and so too is the twist you will use in the sails in order to induce drive and make for a wider 'groove' in which the boat is powering along.

I would  say as I have done myself, go out and experiment against other boats in OD races or two boat tuning sessions and see if low and fast with little steering and a good deal of relaxed movement pays for you more than see-sawing around trying to go higher on each wave crest and avoiding hte biggest troughs.  Look upon active steering as an added bonus once you know you can sail a low more or less straight line comfortably.

In racing it is really important if you are interested in doing well, to get the crew fully hiking while practicing long before the start. Here in waves upwind you can get a feel for the rig settings and if you are going to go low and fast or if you are going to actively steer, Also you will have a feel for the gusts and if you need active sheeting, and if you will prefer to use traveller and back stay,  or mostly main sheet. It also affects very much your choice of foresail in a regatta machine or venerable cruiser-raccer. Needing to strip down from a number one 140% genoa will upset the crew even more than being overpowered with it up. Also a smaller head sail will naturally lend itself to a wider range of sailing angles and an open slot.

As you gett better you will get more used to deciding gears and knowing your boat's rig. Then you can start to make the fine tweaks and decisions on how high to sail which win back height over the competition without you slamming into waves or fighting the rig as you did years before, like me !