Winter Ahead Oh Yee Salty Sea Dog

Winter is really upon us here in Norway by soft southern standards and now is a time for all of us in the Northern Hemisphere to reflect on the outgoing season and look forward to new adventures and racing podium chances next year.

Short of doing a winter series, which is a cold and damp affaire, what can we get up to in the winter? Boat prep - well it is essential to 'winterise' your boat and double check that no water can gather, seap in or condense in awkwards parts of the boat and pipes or hollow hull fittings such that any hard frost, so a feature of our more northerly winters here, does not create expansion damage. Osmosis and any delamination with ingress of water should be seen to before the winter is upon you as even a couple of days of frost can exacerbate problems in GRP a yacht or dinghy.

Working outdoors or in a cold shed is not much pleasure until the mercury hits 14 degrees again, and as many expoxies, paints, polyester, etc etc don't work well with either cold temnperature setting and with any chance of condensation while they are drying, then I would say, sod it. If it can't be stripped off and taken in doors then best left for spring IMHO.

However there are plenty of things which can be done in doors and others which should be sorted by prof's if you are not very skilled or short on free time. For example, you can pay for sail wash, minor repairs and 'lofting' for the winter with many local sail makers - just check they have experience in your sail material. Loose threads, delamination, leechline tears etc are all small things which are cheap to get right in the winter, but will cost you dear in a spring gale when you first are tested in the next season. Sheets and halyards are a good thing to also wash in fresh water, dry out while the sun is still up, and  go over and really think about cropping, repairing or finding hand-me-down uses for such as wharps or smaller lines on board if they are very worn at an end or usually turning block/winch length. Blocks are often quite easy to reseat the bearings on yourself also. New ropes can also be 'sand papered in' to make them less slippy and they can be cut, eyed, spliced and knotted exactly as the old ones while memory of the rigging is still fresh as a daisy

Now one thing I hate is masts left up all winter. They create a lot of leaverage in the worst winter storms, and in fact your insurance may stipulate that the mast should be down for this very reason. Also they vibrate which can damage the step. Winter here means 7 or 8 months for many, with the worst  storm weather of course. Taking it down also allows you to handle halyard removal and checking them better to see where they are being worn so you can choose to cut and splice, reverse and splice or use as a.n.other rope on board. It is easier to run lines through without losing them to some extent, and of course you get to check and repair all mast head and foot appendages like turning blocks, Cables, glands and connections can be checked, cleaned and replaced if damaged and instruments and lights can be dismounted to be stored indoors once they are rinsed with fresh water.  Teak should be oiled when dry and before it gets below 10'c. I have heard of people rubbing candles over teak decks as a form of extra winter protection which helps stop algae, but don't know if it is effective or easy to get off in spring.

Oops, Did I Say Repair and Improvements Strategy Yet ?

Coming back round on ourselves in a chicken gybe here, I should mention that a lot of getting things fixed right for the next season depends on remembering that they went wrong in the last season!! Here a racing log and perhaps repair book are useful to keep every time the boat is raced, cruised, delivered or taken up on the hard. It may be that something is not actually broken, just not functioning optimally, and it is a good thing to ask other boat owners of your class or set up what they do, to for example, make the kicker easy to release and rejam. An early winter cleaning party can be accompanied by a trip to the boozer or tea total cafe, with notepad in hand, to ask if they crew found any equipment a real pain in the neck, or that it had failed, or that it might wear out soon and then fail, or that it could just operate better, with less friction, more purchase, stiffer material, thinner line and so on and so on.

Armed with a list of jobs in hand, then it is best to organise yourself around your own valuable fee time, the need to remember how things were fitted or should be fitted after repair, and your budget. There are plenty small jobs which can be done at home or on milder days in the winter. You should also try to get a better price on an engine service before the season rears its head next spring. North Sails and probably quite a few lofts if asked in October, offer a winter pricing for sail making and delivery such that you get a benefit of having sails booked and taken home on their quiet season.

Courses and Networking

Ah, the long winter evenings. Well maybe your club shuts its doors October first or maybe you just didn't read the winter seminar and talks schedule. It can be worth going to lectures and often the best are run at a regional level, such as with the RORC or the CCC and can be worth travelling to the big smoke for. Maybe you would like to arrange some lectures and 'workshops' were self appointed club experts and class afficionados can give a talk, answer questions and everyone can share information and stories. Also if you don't have say a current, valid VHF certifiacate for examplke, many colleges and out door centres offer winter evning or weekend courses, This includes for some lucky, day skipper and yacht master theory. Some of the lower level courses can be very worth going to as a skipper in need of crew for next season, because they are often full of bright young things keen on turning up and without  middle aged familky commitments. As crew you may want to do the reverse, and in fact the biggest 'promotion' I ever got was meeting some owners in pubs in land locked Mancherster area by chance and a bit of networking. Depsite being at the infamous  Leigh and Lowton SC during the frostbite season, I got no offers to crew with folk on the briney as many did from there.

Quite a few things are decided in the winter. For example not being invited to the christmas do for the crew is perhaps a sign that you are maybe not being invited back, or are firmly on the B list for that boat. The same is true of a skipper who ends up with two of his seven regulars turning up for boat wash, pint and pie in November. He may struggle to get the eight folk or more he needs on his crew list to cover all the events in the coming season. So you may want to advetise, invite and network your way to new crew and ask what events and type of sailing they want to do. The ideal team work on boat prep together and build a new rapport in the off season. Here it is quite common for them to go ski weekend together as well as boat winterise and set up sessions.

The bigger, more prof' run events and nationals advertise atleast 9 months in advance, so you have time to build a crew spreadsheet or get yourself on someones. Networking means also career moves and perhaps just getting some experience on the boat ahead of yours in the fleet as crew or skipper by booking a seat with them early season. Many skippers allow for a drop out and hence back up of one crew per about 8 people, and at events like nationals where folk travel in yachts from all over, it is very likely the a spare man or even two can find both a sail and a berth on another boat if everyone actually happens to turn up.  Some events may then look borderline for crew numbers and you can decide where best to concentrate your holidays and training efforts with the core team.

You may choose a new highlight for your season to breath new enthusiasm into your round the cans crew, such as a first national championship or say the Fastnet Race, The North Sea Race, The Round Mull Race or the new and exotically remote, St. Kilda Race. This requires quite a lot of planning for the entry and compliance to safety, as well as it should entail training in foul weather rigging and safety on board, MOB, navigation and so on. For Solenters you are lucky enough to have a series of very good channel races which run by the RORC and the JOG, and some clubs do flotilla runs to Guernsey and so on. Metereology for the yachtsman is a big deal for the Fastnet as bitter experience has shown so that is another area to use the winter to learn up on.

Bookworm Winter

The mention of Navigation and Metereology bring me to winter reading.  There are somne very good books of course on some of the more detailed aspects of sailing as well as those mini encyclopedias which often have some learning to be extracted from for even the seasoned sea dog. Libraries in the most land lubbed stretches of darkest inland oxford and yorkshire have often a good little selection of general texts on sailing and some good wee boilers on navigation, day skipper or metereology at sea. These are often getting a wee bit pricey as the volume of books sold declines with the internet, and really apart from better graphics, metereology books haven't changed much in the last thirty years.

On line courses are available, but you know, youtube and the RYA have an amazing amount of on line videos which can help you understand how to do a manoevre or develop a strategy for the day or whatever. I find it really best to read some theory and then try and find it on youtube.

Coming soon then, the Damp Freddy reading list and jump station links to the worlds best vids on how to get that wee bitty better next season.


Why , jings, crivens, help-ma-boab , there's also my blog to read of a winter eve!

What Winners Do?

I wrote before about the key factor which takes boats and crews from "also ran" somewhere in the top 10, to regular winners: “going the extra mile”. What do winners do differently to those who pitch around between 3rd and 9th places ?

Well I think saying that they give it 110% is meaningful, but winners also give it 110% off the water. This is not a factor of just time though! It is a matter of effort, focus and most of all attitude.

I think that the single most important thing that winners do is that they learn both from their mistakes, and how to improve on weaknesses. As Uffa Fox put it, “if you make three mistakes in the course of a triangle course race, then you will at best get third place..2nd place for those who make 2 small mistakes..if you make just one mistake then you will get first”

One thing here with attitude is that they are prepared to learn, and not rest on their laurels or think that they are good enough not lucky today. This latter description applies to all the loser-boats and stressed out wannabees I have ever sailed with who can get up there in the top ten of an average sized fleet.

Second to this I think winners are better at calculating risk-payoff and actual risk of collision! They are less afraid to use the rules to maintain their position and are not intimidated by bullying rules breakers or other good boats vying for start and mark positions. This is certainly where experience pays off. Like catching a ball, you just know that the boat will squeeze in there or go faster sailing a “banana” to stay in wind. In this also, I notice that winning boats do make tactical errors and begin on strategic errors BUT they recognise the situation and remedy it. This is crucial to performance in a series regatta where you need to be consistent over absolute wins in the week. Also in offshore, knowing when something isn’t working, reacting decisively and getting back into a tactical covering position to re-think strategy are what makes the difference.

Boat preparation: well my attitude is make it easy on yourself if you have a family and little or no boat building and repair experience: buy new. One things winners have is good equipment so you can either use your free time ( if you have any for this as well as racing!) to make old good or to keep an ageing boat in top form OR you can buy newer boats or components. Sounds terribly consumerist, but I recommend using time in the off season for physical training and reading rather than dusty repairs and renovations. Nearly all winning boats have new sails, or those in VGC up to 2 seasons old by the way.

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How do I know all this? Well I am only a rank amateur sports psychologist, but I had the luck to sail with also rans as well as some top amateur winners! If I had sailed only with those top echelon boats then the small mistakes would have been lost on me, and the big gains by corrections to rough errors and high risk taking would have been hidden.

I could have been one of those little groupies with the latest sun glasses, on the boats with the best HC and put up with all the frustrations when they keep on only coming 3rd. Instead I sailed a lot in one design, but moved on to sail with winners in HC fleets and events.

After a time of being on the scene I could get invited to various better boats throughout my career and that is vital for any owner-driver wanting to improve from “also ran” to regular winner.


Now team work of course is a pre-requsite, but not the decisive factor in moving from a "3rd place best" boat to the top: many a good team is let down by bad decision making at the top, er sorry, stern! Team dynamics, building and skills interactions will hopefully be the topic of my next blog!