Tag: #sailcoach

To do this in Sailing, you need to have the experience to prioritise what you should be working on.

You need the resources to travel to where the best competition is and to have the best possible equipment that you can afford.

You must also be prepared to put in the extra training time necessary so that you are just a little more prepared than the other teams.

When you are planning a season or leading up to a championship, you must prioritise and set realistic goals and work gradually but inexorably towards them. 

The important thing here is staying on track, not panic if you are not progressing as quickly as you had hoped, and not making drastic changes.

Importantly, work with your team to set a training schedule that will not see you burn out or put stress on your theirs work or personal relationships.

Make a list of your weaknesses and prioritise those, that when mastered, will give you the greatest gains. These may be the things you enjoy doing the least but will see your greatest overall improvement.

An example may be gybing in heavy air which in the past has seen more than your fair share of swimming. To fix this would be the difference between a tail end result and a personal best in a heavy air series.

Another habit to develop is arriving for the days sailing early so your boat preparation is perfect, you can relax and get your head into sailing mode, observe and plan for the day’s weather and then being the first boat out on the course. 

#sailingtowin #sailtowin #sailingcoach #sailing #sailboatrace #yachtrace

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Excerpts from an interview with highly accomplished Dinghy through to Maxi Yacht sailor and North Sails sailmaker Michael Coxon.

What’s the most important sail control and how does that vary from class to class?

“The most important sail control for any boat is the sheet tension. Where the sheet tension will tend to control the twist of the sail and the general drive of it, you can actually then use the subtler controls. Those controls include the outhaul and the Cunningham eye.

One very important thing depending on the boat is mast bend and how you achieve the mast bend.  If the mast bend is achieved through having a backstay, it makes the exercise fairly easy.

If it’s a non-backstay boat it will depend on things such as boom vang, again, sheet tension; it will depend on if you’ve got control of the mast at the deck. In other words, can you control the pre-bend in the mast whether through a lever or a chocking system?

Another big variable is rig tension. By increasing rig tension you’ll put more compression through your rig and increase, obviously the tension, but also the pre-bend in the rig.”

How often during a race do you adjust your settings and what indicators tip you off to make the changes?

“Depending on how you’re going is how often you’re going to adjust it.

If you feel comfortable, you’ll tend to not play with things that much. You might make subtle adjustments for conditions. I find that if I feel that I’m off the pace, that’s when I’ll get more aggressive in what I do. 

My golden rule in one design, it doesn’t matter who the boat near you is, sail yourself boat relative.

I don’t care if that boat is regarded as one of the front markers or one of the back markers. If he’s got an edge on you, use your eyes. See where his traveler is. See where his pre-bend is. How much forestay sag does he have?

The other rule I always have is that most races have two or three beats in them.

 So many times I’ll come back to the club afterward, and someone will say, “Ah, I was really slow off the starting line.” And I’ll go, “Okay, so you were slow off the starting, so how were you up the second beat?” “Oh, really slow still up the second beat.” I’ll say to them, “Well, what did you change?” “I didn’t change anything.” I’m back here asking you now. I say, “Well, what you need to do is whether you change something for the better or the worse, if you made a change you would have learned.”

Once you are comfortable and well-positioned on the run as a team, you need to debrief the beat. If you do identify you had a problem, for instance, you might say, “I think we had a height problem. We were good through the water, but we had a height problem.”

If I was on my Etchells, the first thing I’d say, “Hey guys, we’ve got to look at whether we have to control the forestay sag a bit more, so perhaps we should straighten the mast up a little bit with the mast lever and that will instantly give me more forestay tension.” We also might want to take the rig tension up a little bit.

While you calmly think about that down the run before you get to the bottom mark and the action starts again, you’ve made some adjustments. You’re ready to round the bottom mark. You’re in a new boat and you restart again.

#sailingto win #sailtowin #sailing #yachtrace #sailboatrace #sailingcoach

You are unlikely to win every race you enter but you can learn something new every time you go out on the water. For the champions of our sport, learning is one of the most rewarding aspects of competition.

1. Race as many different boats and classes as possible. Different boats react differently concerning changes in sail trim, boat handling, and reaction to waves. Sailing in a large variety of boats will deepen your understanding of what controls do, steering outcomes, and crew requirements.
2. Watch Races. You will learn plenty from watching races from a coach boat or reviewing videos of sailing events. Sometimes you will learn more than you would have learned if you were actually competing.
3. Champions are happy to share their knowledge so don’t be too shy to ask questions in the boat park after a race or in the bar.
4. Two boat training with predetermined exercises and outcomes is a great way to learn quickly about what you need to do to get as fast as possible. This is especially useful in one-design boats but can also work with two different types of boats with known performance parameters.
5. There are plenty of seminars, webinars, and Zoom meetings that you can attend and many have interactive Q&A sessions where you can ask for further clarification of concepts that you may not have fully grasped.
6. Discuss a race from start to finish with your crew or even reconstruct it in your head and note down details and learnings for future reference.
7. Keep a journal that you enter after each race or regatta. Things to record include the boat set up, conditions at the venue including wind speed, sea state, current, size of the fleet, and the sails you used. Record other factors relevant that will help you analyze and remember what worked and what didn’t.
8. One of the easiest ways to get faster in your chosen class is to copy the top performers in your fleet. Watch how they prepare, how they set their boat up, when they leave the beach and what they do before the start.
9. Sail with the best sailors from your fleet on their boats and occasionally get them to sail on your boat with you. Any feedback they give you about your boat’s setup will be invaluable. 
10. As part of your journal, keep photos of great ideas and layouts on other boats. Keep a video library to study sail trim and sailing techniques. This does not need to be restricted to your class and a lot can be learned from other types of boats.
11. Save articles from magazines and read them again and again, join relevant sailing websites and forums and be proactive in commenting and asking questions.
12. Get involved in your clubs learn to sail program and share your knowledge. It is often said that “you don’t really know something until you can explain it to someone else”

#sailingtowin #sailtowin #sail #sailboatrace #yachtrace #sailcoach #yacht

This article was written by super coach ADRIAN FINGLAS during his time as Head Coach 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.

Watching a world-class Etchells fleet race from a coach boat is always interesting, the fast guys are easy to find as they are the least heeled over.

Small dinghies can be sailed extremely flat and the best teams practice for hours just perfecting keeping that exact angle of heel perfect. Steering and mainsheet trim are the two controls constantly being changed and monitored in our small boats.

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

One control and the biggest that’s overlooked is steering accurately with the power you have – I call steering a primary control and generally had the biggest effect on power.

If you are overpowered and heeling too much in a dinghy or a yacht you steer closer to the wind luffing the jib slightly and reducing the power and angle of heel. A yacht or a dinghy that heels over makes considerable leeway (drift sideways) very quickly compared to a yacht sailed flat.

We can be losing so much distance and speed to our opponents if we are heeling too much. In 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. Too much sail depth is the common mistake made in most setups. The sails always look much flatter onboard than from the coach boat. When you see a boat from behind you will be surprised how deep the sails are.

Our 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.

1. Backstay on
2. Traveller down
3. Outhaul on hard lower mainsail shape must be flat
4. Cunningham on hard to hold the draft position in the sail forward of 50%
5. Jib cars aft making the jib flat in the bottom third
6. Jib halyard on hard, no wrinkles, this holds the draft position forward in the flying shape
7. Vang – vang in a dinghy to yacht has radically different outcomes, the vang has much more effect on the dinghy rig 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 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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Depending on the boat you sail, the boom vang will be one of the most important controls to determine the twist of your mainsail. 

As we go from sailing upwind to across the wind and then downwind, the difference in mainsheet tension will determine how much the boom will try to lift as you ease the sheet and this is where vang tension plays its part.

When sailing upwind, different amounts of twist in the mainsail are needed depending on wind strength and sea conditions and as a rule of thumb, in 10-12 knots of wind the main telltale should be breaking 50% of the time and not much or any vang will be needed.

In order to replicate settings for each wind strength and angle of sailing to the wind, it is important to have marks on the vang rope as a reference for the correct amount of tension to control the leech of the mainsail for the current conditions.

When you sail into a lull, the mainsail begins to stall and more twist is needed so the main sheet is eased until the tell tail eventually flies but with the vang on, the mainsail moves to leeward closing the slot. With the vang left slack, the boom is able to rise and the mainsail twists at the top without losing power from the lower sections of the mainsail, and without dropping the boom to leeward and closing the slot.

In light wind and choppy conditions have the vang on hand tight to stop the boom from bouncing but constantly check that your twist is correct by watching your tell tales.

As wind speed increases, the twist is controlled by a combination of sheet and vang tension.

In heavy air where your traveller is completely to leeward and you are still easing mainsheet to keep the boat upright, the mainsail will begin to flap  when the mainsheet is eased. Pull your vang on to tighten the mainsail leech to stop it from flapping while keeping power in the leech. You are in effect driving off the leech of the mainsail.

In these conditions ensure your outhaul and Cunningham are pulled on hard and your backstay (if you have one) is at maximum to flatten the mainsail as much as possible without inverting it.

When reaching, the vang is the main control which effects mainsail twist. As your boom is eased beyond the quarter of the boat, the mainsheet is no longer effective at holding the boom down, so the vang takes over.

On a run, the boom is even further out and the mainsheet is now completely ineffective at controlling mainsail twist, pull your vang on to keep your top batten parallel to the boom and this keeps the mainsail fully projected to the wind.

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