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.
Anyone who has sailed against top sailors will know that many times you can be approaching half way up the first beat, and either in front of or in touch with some of the regatta favourites - often alongside them. A minute later the top sailor will have climbed on you, hit a gust of wind that you can’t reach, and gone from high mode to extremely fast forward compared to yourself, and from feeling great, being in touch or ahead of the good guys, you’re suddenly a hundred metres and forty boats behind them within around 90 seconds. This blog is about beginning to understand how they do that, so you can start to do it too!
The mysteries of sails are often best unravelled by thinking of them as simple and logical tools. We can go into details of flow, turbulence and aspect ratio, but it doesn’t really make the boat that we are trying to tune any faster. This blog is about understanding the goals of tuning masts and sails, and hopefully will give you some ideas on how to go faster.
As boat speeds increase, the wisdom of conventional tactics become far less relevant that they have ever been. For example, in a fast boat, covering one of the opposition can create an opening for 10 boats to get past you. Not what is needed…..
An important skill in downwind sailing is prioritizing weather to sail the boat flat or healed to windward by the lee referred to as kiting, Sailing by the lee means that the air is flowing into the sail from the leech towards the mast as opposed to normal sailing when the air is flowing from the mast towards the leech of the sail
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.
The evolution of skiffs and foils have generated the necessity for the evolution of the skills of pressure hunting.
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 →
Muscles were never really considered too vital in sailing until around 2000. There were of course people who believed that Lasers and Windsurfers needed to be fit, but generally this was not carried over to other classes. Now we see fit sailors winning, and less fit sailors rarely doing so. There is a systematic approach that can be taken to physical training, and this begins with the core.
At Toplevel Sailing we believe we have enjoyed a progressive period in sailing, where a greater cross section and a growing demographic of people have had access to sailing, people of all abilities, all races and cultures are able to compete in our great sport
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