What if
by
Rick White

What if..,
You are rounding the last leeward mark and heading for the finish.

You have one competitor ahead of you and another behind you. You are in second place (either overall for the race, or maybe for just this group of sailors). The leader makes a nice “Enter Wide, Exit Close” rounding of the mark and stays on port tack. You also do another nice rounding and stay on port tack as does the boat behind you. But, the third place boat is not satisfied with his position and tacks off. (Remember, you can’t win by simply following someone – you must do something different)(See Figure A).
What should you do?

Well, the rule of thumb is to stay between the next mark and the competitors behind you, so you should tack. Also, you know you won’t do any good on the leader, if you continue to do the same thing that he does. So, for two reasons you should tack (See Diagram B):
1) Because you want to cover the boat behind you (stay between the next mark and the competitor)
2) Because you want to also do something different than the boat ahead of you.
This give you the chance to stay in second place, and possibly even win the race between the three of you.
Why? Because you are staying in the same wind patterns as the boat behind you and chances of him passing you are poor, as long as you don’t blow a tack. And you might win because you have a chance to be in different air than the leader.
By tacking off you may be in worse air, in which case you finish second – not bad!
It may be better air, in which case you could actually win – great!
It may all be the same air, in which case, no positions will change – still not bad!
No matter what the wind does, you shouldn’t lose a position, and you have the possibility of picking up a spot.