Though we have been discussing much about downwind sailing and ways to go fast, based on our experience the big money in sailing is on the runs, so there is always room for more gains to be made.
Pushing Water
When we go sailing, the boat may just push water out of the way (usually called displacement mode), ride on top of its own bow wave (planing) or foil. This week we look at how water resistance effects boatspeed, and what we can do to minimise this resistance.
The Art of Reaching
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.
Smart Reaching
Reaching may be thought of as a dying art. However it is still extremely critical to results in many classes, and even in asymmetric classes sailing windward leeward courses, the same skills apply to an extent when you are in a group of boats that overstand the mark. This blog is about how to be smarter than the opposition on a reach, and deals with various scenarios that need thought, and a lot of practise that gives judgement through experience.
Recognising Shifts
It is truly incredible the number of projects we have worked on where the sailors do not know how to recognise headers and lifts. When we ask them what happened to the wind during a training run, they can get it very wrong, and when we ask them what happened during a race, their impression is often at odds with reality, and completely wrong.
Foils
The sailing world is going foiling mad. Time alone will tell whether it's a good thing or not, but what we can say is that it's fun and fast, and very different in feeling. What is the same for the sailor is that we need to understand a far greater range of sail settings in order to optimise the performances of these boats.
Setting Sails
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!.
The Golden Lane
Racing is a process where you are looking for any advantage over the opposition. We tend to coach tactics by likening it to a walk down a corridor, and there are various doors in the wall. You know that one door will lead to a better corridor than another
Starting Analysis
How many times are you on a line, feeling like you’ve pulled the boss move, and with ten seconds to go, things turn pear shaped and the dream start vaporises? This simple and common situation gives us the first priority.