First things first – The Keys To Winning
April 20, 2009
Sunday April 19th the Naval Academy Sailing Squadron hosted their annual spring regatta, an event that acts as a kick off for many Annapolis area racing teams.
Sunday was one design day and eight J105’s and nine J35’s hit the water for two races. I was onboard a J35 that is fairly new program with outstanding individual talent, but relatively little time sailing together on the boat.
The day started off with little to wind, and with arrival of a low pressure system the wind speed jumped to full on breezy conditions in a very short period of time. Of course, that short period of time was in the final minutes before the start. The overpowered conditions quickly highlighted how important boathandling is to racing success.
With all the boats traveling nearly the same speed, and few major shifts, the racing came down to who could execute the basic boathandling maneuvers best. With large overlapping head sails tacking becomes a chore and a challenge – but a necessary one.
On any given race it is likely that your tacking to gybing ratio is 3:1 – maybe more. Meaning that you may tack 5 times per beat and only gybe once or twice. Add to that ratio that the best tacks slow the boat quite a bit (maybe a three boatlength loss) – and you quickly realize that your tacks have got to be good. There not easy either. So even though the maneuver is fairly simple it must be practiced to perfection.
For instance on the first windward leg of both races yesterday we rounded about eight boatlenghts behind the leaders. If we lost one boatlength per tack to the leaders or did just one more tack than the leader right there is the difference between first and fourth. That’s pretty good incentive to work on your tacking technique.
The best part of about boat handling practice is that it can happen just about anytime. With or without a full crew compliment. Until you are perfect I suggest practicing with your smallest sails. It makes it easier on the crew and lets the initial focus be on the driver’s turn. When you are at compliment let the focus be on the trimmers choreography, and if they boat is really doing well with the smaller sail then you can take the technique and timing up to the bigger headsails. When it is light, and you’ve got the whole crew aboard, work on having the forward crew members roll the boat aggressively.
A very simple drill is to find a long runway, set a repeating countdown timer to 2:00 and tack every time the watch beeps. Do this for an hour. That’s 30 tacks. If possible it is great to mount a video camera either at the mast looking aft, or at the stern pulpit looking forward. The camera will provide great feedback for everyone on the boat.
The point here is that if you are going to get the crew together to practice focus on your boat handling until it is absolutely perfect. Boat speed and tactics won’t mean a thing until then.
Here are the scores from yesterday’s races:
Division: J/35 (9 boats) (top)
| Pos | Sail | Boat | Skipper | 1 | 2 | Total Points |
Pos |
| 1 | 40738 | Maggie | Scheidt, Peter | 3 | 1 | 4.00 | 1 |
| 2 | 40248 | Bad Company | Moss, Barry | 1 | 4 | 5.00 | 2 |
| 3 | 73000 | Medicine Man | Kohlerman III,IV, Charles F | 2 | 3 | 5.00 | 3 |
| 4 | 53408 | Aunt Jean | Christofel, Jerry | 5 | 2 | 7.00 | 4 |
| 5 | 41870 | T-Bone | Artman, Bruce | 4 | 7 | 11.00 | 5 |
| 6 | 33785 | Tiamat | Downes, Buck | 7 | 6 | 13.00 | 6 |
| 7 | 97864 | Dakota Girl | Reuer, Stephanie | 9 | 5 | 14.00 | 7 |
| 8 | 53427 | WINDEPENDENT | McGonigle, Masci- | 6 | 8 | 14.00 | 8 |
| 9 | 73425 | Rebel Yell | Hamburger, Joel | 8 | 9 | 17.00 | 9 |
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