Sailing To Win Blog!

DOWNWIND, ALWAYS BE SEARCHING FOR THE BEST PRESSURE

Upwind, Downwind and Reaching

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31/03/2021

As a rule of thumb Downwind, Always be searching for the best pressure.

When sailing on a run, the key to success is locating better wind velocity, getting your boat into that pressure, and then staying in it as long as possible.

Better pressure allows you to sail lower and faster than your fellow competitors meaning you will gain on those in front or move away from those behind.

Keep Your Head Out Of The Boat

Keep your head out of the boat because you want to find puffs early while you still have a reasonable chance of getting to them.

Wind velocity is an important strategic factor because it allows you to sail lower and faster.

The wind you get comes to you from the direction of your apparent wind and that’s where you should search for puffs. Look straight into the wind you feel on your face or in the direction where your telltales or masthead wind pennant indicate the apparent wind, this is where you will see the puffs and lulls that are coming.

Changes in pressure are not always visible on the water so you need to use other indicators such as other boats on your course. Become a detective, often boats around you are going faster and higher because of an increase in pressure and this often appears as a wind shift.

It is often not wise to chase after wind shifts because you may have to sail in the wrong direction to get there but it is sensible to chase after puffs. If you are not in a puff, generally you are in a lull and when sailing downwind don’t be scared to gybe to get to more pressure.

Conversely, if the increase in velocity is to windward, head up more to get there sooner, once there, the extra boat speed will allow you to sail lower and stay in the puff longer.

If there is a choice to sail for more pressure or a better shift it generally pays to sail for the puff and this is especially relevant if the wind is light to moderate.

Downwind, Always be searching for the best pressure

Downwind you can stay in the puffs longer as they are moving with you. Milk them for all they are worth and consider gybing back when you reach the edge unless there are tactical reasons not to.

Try to connect the dots sailing from puff to puff.

Weight movement fore and aft will also promote planing to make the boat go as fast as possible with the extra velocity of the wind.

One last note, make sure you shift gears to adjust for the changes in wind strength using changes to mainsheet tension, pole angle on a symmetrical chute or a change of heading with a Symmetrical.

#sailingtowin #sailfaster #sail #sailing #sailingcoach #sailtowin

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Tactical Tips Regardless Of The Boat You Sail

Strategy and Tactics

Brett Bowden

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17/03/2021

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Tactical Tips Regardless Of The Boat You Sail

Luffing Another Boat

Trying to luff someone going faster than you almost always ends badly. The faster boat’s momentum will take them around you. There is little that can be done to stop that.

Momentum is essential in the last 10 seconds before the gun goes. You need to have momentum on your side and be a little faster than the boats around you. That little extra momentum generally continues for the first minute or two of the race. You only need to be a tenth of a knot quicker for you to succeed.

When you’re sailing upwind, and you cover another boat or want to make them go the other way, tack just on their line, not directly upwind of them.

Tacking To Cover

If you tack directly upwind of another boat, they get to coast through their tack with very little wind on their sails because you have taken their wind. This loss of boat-slowing friction will ensure they will come out of their tack faster than you did which is a gain for them.

If you tack on their line, they don’t get that free gain and they are still going to tack away anyhow and if they don’t tack, they will soon be going slower.

Upwind Vs Downwind Gains

We spend a lot of time and energy working on upwind speed where the gains are tiny compared to downwind. You need to concentrate on using every possible gain from puffs, waves and crew weight positioning from the second you round the top mark until you get to the bottom.

Most of us work hard to gain two boat lengths upwind. Downwind, there are five times that gain available to you. Many of us use downwind legs to relax a little. Because of the gains that can be made, perhaps that breather should take place going upwind.

Mark Rounding

In most cases, the goal of rounding the leeward mark is not to have to tack right away. You don’t want to get into the bad wind of the other boats that have already rounded.

Be mindful that you don’t want to have your bow right on the stern of the boat ahead of you. Half a boat length gap works better.

A smooth turn at the mark with the main trimmed in just ahead of the jib but matching the rate of turn will assist in helping you turn and lessen the drag caused by rampant use of the rudder.

When you reach the leeward mark, blindly pulling the sails in and turning tightly on the mark won’t give you much chance of having a fast, high exit.

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If You Sail Your Boat Flat You Will Be Fast

Boat Speed and Handling

Brett Bowden

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10/03/2021

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Coaches all around the world preach If You Sail Your Boat Flat You Will Be Fast

This article was written by super coach ADRIAN FINGLAS during his time as Head of Coaching at Royal Brighton Yacht Club.

We have all heard the old saying flat is fast, once the boat is powered up and sailing upwind the flatter you can sail your boat the faster it will go.

A common sight from dinghy to one design keelboats is often the winning teams will always have the flattest sail set up and the least angle of heel.

When I watch a world-class Etchells fleet race from my coach boat it’s always interesting. The least heeled over are the fast guys.

Sail small dinghies extremely flat. The best teams practice for hours just perfecting keeping that exact angle of heel perfect. Steering and mainsheet trim are the two controls you constantly need to change in small boats.

Major Controls for keeping your boat flat

We have many different controls that can assist in keeping the boat flat and they all have different effects.

The control that’s the most overlooked is steering accurately with the power you have. Steering is a primary control and generally, it has the biggest effect on power.

Steering closer to the wind fixes being overpowered and heeling too much in a dinghy or a yacht. Luffing the jib slightly and reducing the power and angle of heel. A yacht or a dinghy that heels over makes considerable leeway compared to a yacht that is sailed flat.

We can be losing so much distance and speed to our opponents if we are heeling too much. In the stronger breeze, it is not uncommon to see the top helms luffing the first 6 to 8 inches of the jib as they sail upwind. This is keeping the power and angle of heel under control.

A boat set up poorly with too much power can be like a bucking horse – very difficult to control. A common mistake made in most setups is too much sail depth.

When you look at sails from onboard your boat, they always look much flatter than they are. Get off the boat and look from behind. You will be surprised how deep they are.

Keeping a Big Boat Flat

Secondary controls must be pulled on very hard to stretch the sails flat to reduce power. Listed below in order of importance to reduce power on a big boat.

Backstay on
Traveller down
Outhaul on hard lower mainsail shape must be flat
Cunningham on hard to hold the draft position in the sail forward of 50%
Jib cars aft making the jib flat in the bottom third
Jib halyard on hard, no wrinkles, this holds the draft position forward in the flying shape
The vang in a dinghy to yacht has radically different outcomes. The vang has much more effect on the dinghy rig when compared to a yacht rig.

A sail is a soft flying wing so holding the flying shape in the correct position with your controls is the key.

I have an old saying – except for very light winds wrinkles are slow. Keep the sails smooth, we don’t see planes flying around with bumps on their wings.

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Make The Helmsman Look Great

Steering

Brett Bowden

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04/03/2021

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To make the helmsman look great on your boat, they need good information and feedback, so who should provide it?

Everyone on the boat has a part to play

It probably sounds a bit crazy but believe it or not, everyone on the boat has a part to play. At the end of the day, when you have had a great result the helmsman gets the glory but without a skilful crew, they would not be collecting the chocolates.

Everyone on the boat should be either feeding back information to the relevant person (normally the tactician) or doing their jobs in such a way that they don’t interfere with the steerers’ concentration.

Good, reliable feedback ensures that they steer fast and do not need to look around this means that their sole concentration is focused on keeping the boat moving.

Keelboat Feedback

In a keelboat, the feedback from the genoa trimmer is essential for the best speed upwind. If your boat has a speedo, the genoa trimmer should know the boat polars.

After a tack, the trimmer should call the rate of increase in speed. This indicates to the steerer that he can head up or down until the boat gets up to speed.

The mainsheet trim has a lot to do with how the boat feels and the trimmer will also know how the sail should look in different conditions and different wind speeds.

The feedback to the helmsman should also include a reference to the position of the traveller and sheet tension.

This is essential if you are trying to say in a lane of clear air. The helmsman is then able to call for a little more sheet, less traveller or whatever is needed to get the boat in balance.

The Tactician

The tactician will be communicating things like the position of other boats, where the layline is and the possible need to cross or duck where boats are converging. Being forewarned eliminates the need for crash tacks or ducks.

These cost you many boat lengths. The steerers will not have to break concentration by looking under the boom or over their shoulder.

It’s important to have the tactician relaying accurate information. Going upwind you need a tactician who understands puffs, headers and lifts as they relate to wind velocity and his feedback also needs to relay whether nearby boats are going faster or slower and the reasons why.

Depending on the number of crew, jobs such as calling waves and calling puffs need to be designated. Similarly developing situations at marks will be allocated to a trusted crew member.

This information will be fed back to the tactician who should be the main person to be communicating with the steerer, They will disseminate the information and only pass on the relevant details.

Downwind

Downwind, the tactician or designated person should be constantly looking at boats behind. Make sure that you are not sailing in or about to sail into their wind shadow. As with upwind, the tactician should be watching boats that are converging with your course.

You need a plan for when you do meet. The crew must constantly alert the helmsman about the potential consequences.

All this is designed to stop the helmsman from having to look around. It ensures that they can concentrate on steering for the best speed. This in turn will give you the best possible result.

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Ways To Recover From a Bad Start

Starting

Brett Bowden

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22/02/2021

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If you find you have had or are about to have an ordinary start, there are multiple different ways to recover from a bad start. I have outlined a couple of my favourite ways to recover from a bad start below.

Stay Where You Are And Foot Off –

If you worked out that the left side of the course is where you want to be or that that side will get you to the first shift, it will not hurt to sail in bad air for a short time.

Put the bow down a couple of degrees and ease the sheets slightly, you will get clear air quickly and will be able to resume the best heading in a clear lane.

Tack To Port Before The Start –

It’s important to realise that you are in a bad position just before the gun goes and tack to Port if there is no time or room below to foot off and regroup.

You will have to duck a few boats but remember that you are still on the same ladder rung. As a small bonus, you will get a mini-lift as the wind bends behind each of the Starboard Tackers.

This works really well if you want to go Right. You still have the option to tack back to Starboard if a clear lane opens up.

Tack and Duck –

This is done not long after the start when you find yourself in the second or third row with no hope of digging out.

You may need to foot off to get enough separation or even to slow up for a few seconds to allow the tack and duck but just be careful that you don’t have to duck rows and rows of boats once on Port.

Wait for a Lane to Appear to enable a Tack –

This happens when you have had a reasonable start, near the front row but have a high sailing boat to leeward and a boat about to roll you to windward. Wait for a short time for the traffic to thin out while constantly looking for a clear lane on Port.

Make sure that you tack before the boats ahead do. Otherwise, you will have lost any advantage that you may gain. The longer you wait, the greater the chance of getting tacked on.

Recover One by One –

After a bad start, recover one by one and don’t let your position get inside your head. If you start to think about passing 10 boats in one shot, this is the way you lose.

Strategically pick off your competitors one by one. At the same time strive for a clear lane, getting in phase with the shifts. Get to the side of the course that your pre-race homework established as favoured.

#starting #sailboatstart #yachtrace #sailing #sailingtowin

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How To Manage Seasickness

Offshore

Brett Bowden

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17/02/2021

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Regardless of what a lot of sailors will tell you, it has been reported that up to 90% of sailors experience seasickness, whether it be mild or violent, at some time in their sailing career. How To Manage Seasickness

Seasickness can be compared with a mild to a massive hangover. For some, the only relief comes when the boat reaches its destination.

Unfortunately, I am one of those sailors. I had a rule on my boats that no one was allowed to be sick until I was. Fortunately for all concerned, no one had to wait long.

When putting together an offshore team, finding crew members who don’t get debilitatingly sick is really important not only for your race performance but for the safety of the boat as well.

If you do suffer from “Mal de Mer” there are a few things that may help:

Drink lots of water, staying well hydrated is one of the easiest ways to prevent seasickness.
Don’t sail on an empty stomach, sailing on an empty stomach can increase your chances of feeling seasick.
Avoid caffeinated drinks, colas, alcohol or fatty foods a few days before heading offshore.
Get a good night’s sleep before the race, and start out feeling fresh and at your best.
Keep calm, feeling anxious or fearful can increase your likelihood of experiencing seasickness.
Take a relaxing walk or spend some time meditating before the race. Make sure you start race day feeling at ease.

Seasickness medication

should be taken at least a couple of hours before heading to the boat. If you can, it makes sense to start the medication up to a day beforehand.

Don’t try a new seasickness medication while you are out on the water, many include a sedative and can make you drowsy or have other negative effects which are not ideal if you’re in the middle of a long offshore yacht race.

Try out a new medication while onshore or in a short race. You check out any potential side effects before venturing too far out to sea. Chat with your doctor or pharmacist to get advice on the right medication for you, and how to use it.

Spending too much time below decks with your head in a bag searching for gear is not a good place to be if you’re feeling sick. An easy way to minimise this is to make sure you’re well organised before leaving the dock.

While at sea, make sure you’re well-hydrated and fed, stay warm and where possible, change into warm dry gear and get in as many hours of solid sleep as you can when you are off watch.

What to do when you start to feel sick

If you do start to feel sick, one of the easiest ways to recover is to stand up and look at the horizon. Looking at the horizon gives your brain important information to help its predictive system adapt to the boat’s movement. Standing up challenges it to do that faster.

Keeping busy helps as it keeps your mind off thinking about the movement and feelings of nausea. Helming is a great antidote as well.

If you are prone to seasickness, cooking, packing sails, or any other jobs that involve “enjoying” the smells of diesel and wet gear down below only contribute to making you feel worse.

Even if you do end up getting seasick, taking the right steps to manage it and adopting a “mind over matter” approach, means you’ll recover fast and any sickness will be a distant memory by the time you reach the finish line.

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Three Best Sailing Stretches.

Fitness, Diet and Health

Brett Bowden

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10/02/2021

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Copied from an article written by Brad Walker – https://www.stretchcoach.com

Regardless of the size of the boat, sailing will require all the upper body strength you can muster. Your upper torso, including your shoulders, arms and abdominal muscles will play a major role in operating a sailboat. Three best Sailing Stretches.

The main muscles in play are the rhomboids, trapezius and rotator cuff in the shoulders, and the deltoids of the upper arms. The biceps and triceps provide the impetus of the pull, working against the wind to keep the boat on course and tacking in the right direction

Here are a few things to consider:

Conduct a warm-up, including some gentle stretches, prior to getting on the boat.
Cool down after sailing with some basic sailing stretches.
A good overall conditioning program to strengthen the muscles mentioned above will help prevent many of the strain and sprain type injuries common to sailing.
Incorporate cardiovascular training to prevent fatigue during long days and nights spent sailing.
A comprehensive set of sailing stretches, with emphasis on the lower back, shoulders and arms, will help avoid many of the injuries common to sailing.
Proper training on water safety and swimming will help prevent drowning or near-drowning injuries.
Research the weather conditions before leaving and dress appropriately.
If possible, take frequent breaks and change positions during long sailing periods. This will help prevent the muscles from becoming tight and causing pain.
Stay well hydrated by drinking water every 20-30 minutes even if you do not feel thirsty. Dehydration leads to fatigue, nausea and disorientation.

Sailing stretches are one of the most under-utilized techniques for improving athletic performance, preventing sports injury and properly rehabilitating sprain and strain injury. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that something as simple as stretching won’t be effective.

Below are 3 of the best stretches for sailing; obviously there are a lot more, but these are a great place to start.

Please make special note of the instructions with each stretch, and if you currently have any chronic or recurring muscle or joint pain please take extra care when performing the stretches below, or consult with your physician or physical therapist before performing any of the following stretches.

Instructions:

Slowly move into the stretch position until you feel the tension of about 7 out of 10. If you feel pain or discomfort you’ve pushed the stretch too far; back out of the stretch immediately. Hold the stretch position for 20 to 30 seconds while relaxing and breathing deeply. Come out of the stretch carefully and perform the stretch on the opposite side if necessary. Repeat 2 or 3 times.

Bent Arm Shoulder Stretch:

Stand upright and place one arm across your body. Bend your arm at 90 degrees and pull your elbow towards your body.

Lying Knee Roll-over Lower Back Stretch:

While lying on your back, bend your knees and let them fall to one side. Keep your arms out to the side and let your back and hips rotate with your knees.

Squatting Leg-out Groin and Adductor Stretch:

Stand with your feet wide apart. Keep one leg straight and your toes pointing forward while bending the other leg and turning your toes out to the side. Lower your groin towards the ground and rest your hands on your bent knee or the ground.

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Pre-Race Routines

Preparation and Planning

Brett Bowden

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03/02/2021

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Pre-Race Routines

Pre-Race Routines to Ensure Race Day Success

Pre-Race Routine

Your pre-start routine shouldn’t be set in concrete and needs to be fine-tuned. Take into account the conditions, your freshness and any glaring weaknesses. Work on these in the time available.

Ideally, a three or four-hour gap between waking up and starting a race works best. This gives you time to get ready, feed, hydrate and switch on.

Vary how early before the race you hit the water. In lighter winds, get out earlier and tune up for longer. Allow 45-60min on the racecourse to give more time to refine your trim.

When the breeze is strong, spend 10-20 minutes less time on the course to stay a little fresher.

If some specific aspect of your performance has let you down in prior races, that should be worked on immediately before the next event.

When it was speed, find a buddy to do some straight-lining and make some tweaks to your set-up and technique.

Work On Strategy

If it was a strategy that let you down, spend more time gathering wind data. Then begin the race by sailing the fleet rather than immediately tacking away for glory.

No matter the venue or conditions you’ll always want to check your speed is OK on the day. Check out the wind and check out the starting line.

Ideally, before you leave the shore organise to hook up with another boat to test your speed and to study the wind.

Once on the racecourse, have a few minutes by yourself to get stuff sorted before joining another boat for some straight-line speed testing.

Once sailing side by side with your tuning buddy, you’ll soon know how much more speed work you need to do or how long a day it might be!

Work on Speed

If you’re faster or even speed, you can soon move on to checking the wind.

If you’re slow, review your sail and rig settings, ask your buddy how they are set up. Then make a change and test again. Continue the process until you are satisfied you’ve optimised your set-up for the day.

Once you are happy with your speed, expand your awareness to tracking your heading on each tack with a compass or via land references.

Be Aware of Wind Shifts – http://sailingtowinblog.com/2022/07/20/prevent-sailing-breakdowns/

Sail through a few lifts and knocks on each tack to become aware of the range of wind shifts. Working on speed and shifts helps to get your head outside the boat well before the start.

If you’re at a new venue it can be worthwhile testing to see if one side of the course is better than the other. This is best done by doing a split tack with another boat of similar speed.

To achieve this, the two boats head off upwind on opposite tacks for 3-6 mins, tack and when you converge. If one boat is ahead more than a few boat lengths then some factor has made that side better.

Discuss the result of your split tack with the other boat – was there anything that may have affected the result or could they have done better by tacking in a different spot?

Determine the most likely reason for the result – tide, geography, shift or pressure and how repeatable that effect might be.

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Twist’s Importance and When to Use It

Setting Sails and Boat Tuning

Brett Bowden

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27/01/2021

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Twist, is the relative trim of your sail from top to bottom. Your sail has a lot of twist when the top of the leech is open. When you have a closed leech, this is described as little twist. Twist’s Importance and When to Use It

The effect of an increase in twist is a reduction of power. Reducing twist adds power up to the point where the sail stalls and power drops.

Twist in your sails is necessary because of surface friction. The wind is stronger the higher you go than it is at the surface. This is referred to as wind gradient.

True wind and boat speed combine to create apparent wind. The stronger true wind higher up creates stronger apparent wind and a wider apparent wind angle aloft.

The upper part of the sail must be twisted relative to the lower part to match the wider apparent wind angle up high.

Wind gradient is more pronounced in light air, and a deep sail shape, used for extra power in light air – is prone to stalling, so trimming with plenty of twist is necessary.

In moderate winds, you can trim harder without stalling flow and this harder trim with less twist adds power and improves pointing.

Twist’s Importance and When to Use It

In heavy air, as the boat gets overpowered, you flatten sails and add twist to spill power.

You sail with more twist in light air and heavy air and the least twist in moderate air.

Generally, less twist will help to point while more twist is faster giving you a wider steering groove. Coming out of a tack, for example, sails are initially trimmed with extra twist to prevent stalling while you are still slow then you trim on as the boat accelerates to full speed.

In waves and chop, you will trim with extra twist to give a more forgiving steering groove as the boat as pushed around in waves.

Reducing twist when sailing in smooth water maintains full power and a high pointing angle.

Sometimes, as conditions dictate, a combination of twist and flattening is best and one of the challenges of trimming is to achieve the correct mix of power by adjusting depth and twist to match the conditions.

Your boom vang and cunningham are two other controls at your disposal to achieve balance.

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How To Sail Fast in Waves and Choppy Conditions

Boat Speed and Handling

Brett Bowden

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20/01/2021

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How To Sail Fast in Waves and Choppy Conditions

To sail fast in waves and chop you need speed which means powered-up sails and footing off in the worst bits.

As you hit each wave it slows you down and sailing well in waves requires determination, concentration and the correct technique.

When sailing in chop, acceleration mode is the only mode and speed breeds speed. The faster you go the more power you have to deal with speed-sapping waves and to reduce pitching.

Upwind, you will need to sail lower than you normally would to keep the boat fully powered up. Drive to keep the jib telltales flowing with the outside ones starting to lift but not stalling.

To power up your sails there are three settings to achieve this being

1. Angle of Attack 2. Sail Depth and 3. Twist.

To achieve depth with the mainsail, straighten the mast, ease the outhaul and soften the luff with a combination of letting the Cunningham go and easing the halyard.

For the Jib, allow the forestay to sag and move the jib leads forward to make the jib fuller. Move them until all the inside telltales luff evenly up the whole luff of the sail.

Trimming the sheet on takes the twist out of the leech and adds power and assists with pointing. Be careful not to over-trim because you will stall flow which in turn will slow you down.

Creating a little leeward heel can help your performance in chop and create weather helm, which will help you keep the boat on the wind even as the chop tries to push the bow down. (not too much though as too much weather helm creates drag)

On flat-bottomed boats, the heel can also soften the landing when pitching, and concentrate weight low to further reduce pitching and reduce windage.

If you see a particularly nasty set of waves coming, foot off for extra power before you hit them. By sailing low and fast you’ll have extra power to sail over the big ones or steer through them.

Just like going upwind, the first step to downwind performance is to build speed. Head up to a hotter angle with the apparent wind on the beam, this gets the boat moving and establishes flow across the sails.

To build speed, you need to keep the apparent wind forward. Once you’ve got the boat moving downwind, let the apparent wind guide you. Sail as low as you can while keeping the apparent wind blowing in from the side of the boat.

The spinnaker trimmer should provide feedback and if the load on the spinnaker sheet lightens, the trimmer needs to pass that information to the helmsman, “No lower, I’m losing pressure, heat it up.”

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