the technical abilities to be fast on a reach and control your angle of sailing are still worth mastering as every small gain to be made is worth a while. It is incredible how many boats you can take on a reach if you are both fast and smart.
In competitive sailing we are looking for every advantage we may get if we want to win and going fast is a pretty important advantage to have - the gains from using the correct sails are more than just marginal!.
There is a considered observation that we either have high mode or low mode sailors at the top of any fleet. Sailing high or low mode has individual advantages in different conditions, so we have to look carefully at what we mean by high or low mode. The purpose of this blog is to discuss sailing styles and blow some setup myths apart.
We have all read copious amounts of wisdom about sailing being a matter of coaxing the boat through various conditions, listening to what she wants to do and then using some kind of gentle psychic powers to magically steam ahead of all the opposition and win. This blog is about the brutal truth. Understanding... Continue Reading →
Until around four decades ago hiking was viewed as a low returns skill to be treated with some cynicism as it was too physical to be a valued part of the art of sail racing. Yes, people hiked, but not with anything like the intensity that they do today. Hiking technique has become increasingly important across the classes, and certainly in the Olympic/WS development fleets Laser (so reliant on physical skills!), 470 and 420 are always seeking new levels to get the maximum leverage possible.
Whilst many asymmetric kite boats struggle to reach effectively and the reaching legs have been dropped from their courses, the skills of reaching are still very important for traditional classes such as Laser, 420, 470 etc. This blog is aimed at those classes, and hopefully some of the information here will also help our asymmetric sailors when they have overlaid a downwind mark! The potential losses and gains on a reach, particularly rounding the top mark and approaching the reach mark are huge.
420 Dynamic Sailing As previously discussed, at Toplevel Sailing, throughout our sail coaching sessions, we believe and encourage our sailors to adopt a dynamic sailing approach in order to maintain speed. In double handed dinghies (in this example the 420) the boat will be limited by the collapsing kite going downwind. So the question will... Continue Reading →
Sep. 2017, our club sailors had won 70% medals including 5 of 6 GOLD on Opti, Laser full rig, radial, 4.7 of the National Games in Taiwan. It’s incredible achievement after Pete and Eshed bringing their training program to us since July 2017. Be a local county entry-level sailing club without dedicated full-time coaches, sailors... Continue Reading →
Making it look easy... When it comes to setting up the sailing boat for any given condition the initial step is to make sure that the power setup is right; that we are not over powered or under powered, of course there are adjustments to be made that are immediate, but the general setting is... Continue Reading →
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