Improve Your Sailing While in Lockdown. If you are like me, you have been spending time away from the boat. We have used that time to get all things computer and home office up to date. Those jobs that have been carried forward in your diary for what seems like years.
While this has been great, one downside of all...
The Start. Starting is one of the most complex aspects of a boat race with many moving parts, sail trim, team communication, competitors' attack and defence moves and the overall strategic view. All aspects have to flow and come together all at the one time on the go Signal.
Preparation
Many teams spend huge hours working on perfecting crew work and...
Making Reaches Work
In this day and age of mainly windward and return races, the art, and skill of sailing a reach is becoming a distant memory for many of us with symmetrical spinnaker boats.
Please note though, that a lot of the tips below are also relevant to two-sailed and single-sail boats as well.
If you do get a reaching course...
Windward Mark Roundings,
As sailors we put an enormous amount of thought into the start, and so we should, and next, we talk a lot about upwind speed and observing and playing the shifts but planning and thought seems to go out the window when considering rounding the windward mark and transitioning to the downwind leg.
Having a clean windward mark...
See The Wind. Perhaps the most important skill that separates the best sailors from the rest of the fleet is their ability to see the wind.
The reason that this is critical is that it enables them to consistently get to the windier side of the course and thus sail faster than their competition.
Obviously, no one can actually see the wind...
