I'm curious to see if any of you more serious fellas have any techniques for race practicing. Particularly when you don't have a practice partner (2nd boat) to "race" against nor a chase boat for a coach.

While I realize that this is far from an optimal setup, what are some of the better techniques that you've used while on the water by your lonesome to improve your racing skills? --Just looking for some new ideas. Thanks.

Tad,
Do you have our book, "Sailing Drills"? Some of the most important skills for racing are boat-handling, starts, and mark roundings, and there are drills in there that you can do alone to improve all those skills. All you need is a few marks, and you can make those out of gallon milk or water jugs and spray paint them orange on the INSIDE. Use big grapefruit bags full of rocks as anchors.

Plus, you could spend hours perfecting starting techniques by just putting out two marks for a starting line and practicing how to find the favored end, time the length of the line, get a transit in both directions, hold your position on the line, or get your timing down for doing a fast approach to the line.

One really good drill is setting out a mark (or using somebody's crab pot float) and trying to stop your boat by the mark and keep it there. It's more frustrating than a video game, but really good boat-handling practice.

In fact, you can even practice your start timing when you are driving your car. I have heard that Dennis Connor is an expert on timing his approach to the starting line and he practices on the freeway by estimating how long it is going to take him to get to an overpass.

Mary, to be honest, I didn't know the book existed. I'm ordering it come Feb 1st!

I dont know how serious you would think we are, but..

What Mary said, and the book _is_ good if you need exercises for boat handling.

In addition, we go out to work on our boatspeed with a GPS. It's far from perfect, but it's the best option we have. At least you can see the difference in pointing and speed with the different trims and techniques.
To hone our cutroath racing instincts, we have been allowed to race on handicap against the monohullers in their weekly races. Especially starts and the first 2-300 meters are nice training for our strategy and starting technique (even if they do timed runs while we park on the line). We have learnt how to point high and go slow from them at least, which comes in handy from time to time.

Now, we mostly set up a course and do laps while working on pointing, speed (up and downwind), laylines and technique. We keep a running critique going onboard, where we point out mistakes done and suggestions on how to improve in a positive way.
We have had some feedback from a few olympic T sailors, and the best feedback was the most negative one. It gave us a lot to work with.. Doing a coaching session with an open mind is a very fast way to improve. Sailing besides other types of boats can also teach you a lot on boatspeed, especially in light winds.
In the end, nothing beats time spent on the boat, working on how to be faster. Not just reaching around or running with the spi, but working on being faster on every aspect and manouver while going around the course.

Before the Inter 20 North Americans in Connecticut several years back, one skipper was using a new crew for the regatta. When the other I20's were doing a practice race, this skipper took his crew out and did 200 tacks and 200 gybes to practice. He ended up winning every race and the crew said that the practice they did helped enourmously. They came out of every tack and every gybe with an advantage over their competitors which made that team dominant. I don't know how much it would help your Tybee race though.

Mary is right, the drills I learned in Rick White's Sailing Seminars (I have attended 2) are terrific for getting things right for going around the bouys. They improved my performance on the water. My suggestion is an additional alternative, not suggested as a replacement for what Mary told you. BTW, if you can get your team to one of Rick's seminars, you won't regret it!

Tad, that's 50 figure eights, pretty much collegiate standard pre-req every time you hit the water, and before you do your other drills.

That could get mighty tiring if you have to set/douse the chute for every figure 8

Not to mention that the waist of the "8" can get pretty exciting.

No, you don't do Fig 8's.

You sail up wind for (say) 10 mins tacking every 20 seconds (or what ever is sensible so you can go from Fully powered(FP) up to FP) and then stop and discus it and agree any changes required (or earlier if things are going wrong). Then either continue up wind with refined technique or sail back down hill going form FP to FP and then discuss again and refine / continue.

A classic one is to swap helm for crew as well, it gives both people an idea of the problems the other has when Tacking or gybing etc.

GPS tracking / watching can also be very usefull too, as can

Yo Tad,

Try this one, I spent many hours rounding one bouy.

Approach from windward set up for leeward mark roundings from various angles. ALWAYS concentrating on enter wide and leave tight.

Sail upwind a couple hundred yards and tack 3 times and do it again.

Do this at least 10 times every time you are out.

If in a spin boat give yourself room to set your chute for the DW approach.

Peace out

Hi there,



It sounds dorky but I try to pride myself on crew work. When there is nobody about we put up old sails and hone our skills on the boring stuff - 25 tacks 20 seconds apart, jybes, spi hoists, drops, mark roundings etc etc. Look at what is happening, try something different and then do it again.

Initially we did it to sort out the new boat. Grab this rope with this hand and all in whatever order so that we didn't get tangled and developed the fastest way of performing the maneuver. Motion analysis is big in manufacturing and works very well on the boat.

These days we do it to get our bodies as automatic as possible. Like when driving a car and somebody pulls out in front of you - your foot should be on the brake automatically before you even think of it. That is the level I want on the boat in all conditions. That way we can concentrate on our wind and competitor strategy as our boat speed is almost automatic.

Michael

One of the most important things you can do is study the wind and the water. It's like a big laboratory out there.

Every time you are out sailing, even if just for fun or taking a day trip to an island, you can observe persistent wind shifts and geographical shifts, and you can learn to time oscillating shifts.

By observing wave action, you can sometimes determine not only the present wind direction but the future wind direction -- or whether there is current (wind, geographical, or tidal) and the direction of the current.

You can learn to watch puffs as they hit the water and based upon the direction of the little riffles on the surface, you can tell whether you are sailing into a lift or a header.

And you can observe the clouds overhead and note whether you are getting puffs of wind coming down from a cloud. If there is a storm system in the distance, is it causing the wind direction to change and come stronger from the direction of the storm, or is it sucking all the wind up and making the air die where you are.

All these observations go into your mental databank and end up being what we usually call "experience." This knowledge and experience helps you to automatically make better decisions on the race course about when to zig and when to zag and what side of the course to be on. And this is true for both buoys racing and distance racing.

I have absorbed a little of this knowledge and experience just by osmosis from having sailed for so many years. But I know the expert sailors work actively at acquiring and storing this kind of knowledge -- and they take notes about such things at every regatta they participate in and everywhere they sail or practice.

When you think those hotshots have an edge on you, that "edge" is often in a notebook where they have written down all the local knowledge and their own observations about that venue from the last time(s) they sailed there (or at a similar venue)

Yes, it is, but untill you have al lthe boat handling down pat, if yu spend too much time looking out of the boat you go slow.

I have what I call the "Auto-pilot zone" where I'm sailing the boat (for boatspeed and doing good T+G's) without thinking about it very much which allows me to get my head out the boat. You can (IMO) only do this when you have your boat handling sorted out.

There's a chicken-and-egg factor here.

Very interesting thread! Could the ones that improve boat speed by the means of gps explain a little more? gps measures boat speed not vmg, vmg can only be aproximated by setting a wind direction (which usually is not stable). So how you know if pinching a little more would pay off?

Wind direction doesn't have anything to do with VMG calculated to a point in GPS.
On the GPS, set a windward mark as a waypoint then "go to" that waypoint and it will tell you speed and VMG. During a race, wind shifts don't change the windward mark. With this you can see if you are pinching too much. This really works well downwind. During the RTI, the GPS was key in keeping us honest doing the apparent thousand gybes on the intercoastal (we followed VMG, not boat speed).

Sail as much as possible on anything. I spent my late elemtary-early high school years (pre chicks) riding my bike 12 miles a day to a marina where my boat was and sailing every day on a little Butterfly scow. That more than anything improved my skills.

I know you're a little too busy to sail all the time, so train your boday and your brain. You already dream about sailing, but visualize how the boat moves through the water and what the sails look like every possible time you can. It makes the actual event second nature. Go over scenarios in your head and believe it or not you come up with some pretty good answers yourself. Talk to your sailing team about situations a lot too. Also, picture yourself kicking some butt. That always makes me train that much harder. I read all of Buddy's books, Bethwait's, Stewart Walker's, DC's, North U (weather, tactics, etc.). Run, walk, hike, ride bikes (any cardio), emphasize abs, back (lower back too) and biceps in your overall workout (and your neck since you're doing the tybee:-) If you train your body, your brain will begin to really take over; it's 75% mental on the water.

There are several problems with using the GPS in this manner, but it's much better than dead reckoning.
You can use it either as described over, to work on the VMG (or put the windward waypoint several miles further upwind/downwind).
When sailing in relatively stable wind, we also use it to test different trims by looking at the speed over ground.
We have also used the tracking data to analyze jibing/tacking angles and speed on the computer after sailing. If you are so lucky that you can get your hands on a polar diagram or some good VPP programs for your boat you can use this in a constructive way to at least know when you can do better.

I've used GPS tracking to look at out-and-out boat speed (mainly in the lighter stuff when I usually struggle against oher single handers). It does assume a steady wind speed so you have to be carefull. But you can (with care) user the GPS to spot small changes in speed as you change something.

Like say finding the optimum mast rotation.

Sail on a course, set the mast rotation at max (or min) and off you go. This is a datum. Move the rotation a little in one direction in steps of say 2 cm of rope (or something that makes sense) so the mast is moving a small amount at a time recheck the GPS of change in speed. Hopefully you will find a place where the speed is best. Now repeat the example above "around this point" to fine tune it. Flat water helps as this gives you more consistant results, but also may hide the fact that you actually need more power (in the mast) to punch thru waves etc.

Repeat this for the various wind settings where you might play with the rotation and this should give you some guide as to where the mast should be.

Take a pinch of salt as this is only give a guide and may not be perfect as if it's gusty or lumpy, you need to look further than just the numbers

Ditto position of the traveller and should you let the top of the mainsail twist off in the light stuff and or is a flat sail faster than a full one.....

So you guys really advise to go & get a gps? I always have taken it for one more "electronic toy" which is nice to play with but really doesn´t help a lot. PTP, I understand vmg as you explain, but a (directional) windshift changes vmg to the windward mark, as you change your heading, right?