Sunday, October 23, 2005

Rule Of Three Quarters

For reasons I explained in an earlier post, there was a lot of time at the US Laser Masters for hanging out at the yacht club, catching up with old friends, swapping stories and chatting about sailing. I probably learned more from these conversations than I did from the actual sailing.

One tip on large fleet strategy I picked up from an overheard conversation. A certain former Laser hotshot, who now sails Snipes seriously, was sailing in the regatta. Someone asked him why he was sailing in Lasers again. He explained that he had been disappointed with his result in this year's Snipe World Championship. Only twentieth.

"We've been training with the top guys. We know we're as fast as them. Then I realized we were lacking recent experience in big fleets." So he decided to sail in some big Laser regattas (there were 80 sailors at this event) to get back his feel for big fleet strategy.

His questioner pressed the point. "So what do you do different in big fleets?"

"Well, you have to get out to one side and then dig back in three quarters of the way up the beat. Then you have to get out to the side again."

Hmmmm. Interesting. It wasn't totally new to me. But it was expressed in a way that was new to me. I knew that in a big fleet you rarely get near the leaders by tacking up the middle of the course. You have to choose the side that you think is favored and go for it. I also knew that you don't want to "bang the corner". Once you're on a layline you can only lose to the competition on every shift. So digging back in about three quarters of the way up the beat makes sense.

But then why did our expert say that then you have to get out to the side of the course again? I discovered the hard way in one race on Saturday. I went out to the right side of the course in a clear lane, and dug back in three quarters of the way up the beat. Looked to be about 20th out of 80. Not bad for me. But then I started playing the shifts up the middle. Bad idea. There is so much confused air dead downwind of the windward mark in a big fleet. Boats coming in to the mark on both laylines, leaders already coming down the run. Not a good place to be. I rounded the mark in about 40th place and never recovered.

Well, at least I learned a lesson. Free seminar from a former Laser World Champion. And then reinforced it by learning the hard way. Won't make that mistake again.

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