Tacking Like a Boss

Thought you would enjoy this video of Chris Arnell in an RS 300, as he puts it, making an "almost perfect escape onto port tack last weekend ;)"

I think that semicolon and parenthesis are meant to indicate he is joking.

I assume this is the same gentleman who writes the hilarious RS300 393 - adventures of a boat and her incompetent skipper blog.

I think I have written about his blog before. It's a bit like Proper Course but a lot better because Chris is much more skilled at the self-deprecating British humour thing than I am.



I don't know much about the RS 300 except that it's another RS Sailing singlehander like the RS Aero, but it's been around a few more years and it looks a lot more difficult to sail.

Somebody even wrote a blog post suggesting that the RS 300 is a cult.



Is the RS Aero a cult too?

Tacks and Gybes and Beer

On Wednesday the winds were "on the strong side of moderate" for the first day of the two day RS Aero clinic at the Columbia River Gorge.

The coach running the clinic, Peter Barton from the UK, mainly had us focusing on our technique for gybes and tacks.

I learned a lot...

1. My footwork in tacks is all wrong and is the reason why I am so slow in getting into the toe-straps and hiking properly on the new tack. I blame 30 years of Laser sailing for giving me bad habits. Unfortunately I wasn't able to break the key bad habit yesterday. My tacks didn't really improve after a whole day of tacking and gybing on the whistle. More practice is indicated.

2. The timing and technique for grabbing the "falls" of the main sheet to pull the boom across and initiate gybes is more subtle than I realized.  I was doing much better gybes after a day of tacking and gybing on the whistle.

3. A day of practice in "strong side of moderate" winds has done wonders for my confidence.

4. Coming second in the last race of the day did even more for my confidence.

5. Beer immediately after sailing is a recovery drink.

After the clinic we enjoyed an excellent dinner of pulled pork and all the trimmings served outside on the lawn by the side of the river in the Marine Park. RS Aero sailors seem to enjoy discussing...

1. How many different ways can there be to score a class with three rigs racing together? Answer - a hell of a lot once you start thinking about it.

2. Will anybody ever break Chunky's 23.9 knots RS Aero world speed record? One of our number believes he can do it on flat water on a day when it's blowing over 40 knots.

3. What will the winds do for the rest of the week. Will they "invert" - whatever that means? Answer - nobody knows and in any case we will just sail the winds we get. In 2 knots we will go sailing. In 40 knots we will go sailing. (Well maybe the guy who wants to break Chunky's record will go sailing.)

4. Why is that boat flying a Union Jack and who is responsible?

5. Have you sold your Laser yet?

Proprioception in Sailing

In a comment to my previous post on bikes and cubes, George A suggested that the reason why we lose certain skills if we don't practice them regularly could be due to a decline in "proprioception."

Proprioception. That's not a word you see every day on sailing blogs.

It's not a word I use every day in any context, so I had to look it up.

According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong) proprioception is "the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement."



Hmmm!

As a kid I was gangly and clumsy and uncoordinated. I was always knocking things over and breaking things. My father used to scold me, "Tillerboy, you seem to have no idea what your arms and legs are doing!"

He was right.

Or to put it another way I have very poor proprioception.



Ahah!

Of course. That's one of my major problem with sailing too. I have no idea what my arms and legs are doing.

Not only do I not usually have a clear plan of what my arms and legs should be doing while executing a roll gybe, say, but I am pretty sure I don't even do the same things with my arms and legs every time I do a roll gybe (or any other maneuver for that matter.)

Oops moment

Not me

Is it any surprise that my boat-handling is terrible and full of stumbles and accidents and drama and "oops" moments?

So this week I have been working on improving my proprioception in the RS Aero.

---

On Sunday and Monday I sailed an RS Aero 7 with the Laser training group in the mornings and received a lot of useful feedback from the instructor.

By Monday I had got over that "I have totally forgotten how to sail this boat feeling" that I had on Saturday. Maybe sailing is like riding a bike after all? You don't forget. At least not for long.

Riding a bike

Not me

We were doing long upwinds and downwind on both days. By Monday I had really found my groove upwind and was crushing - totally crushing - all the Lasers and a couple of D-zeros upwind. I love looking back and seeing all those beady little eyes looking upwind at me. Children can be so cruel at my age.

And once the instructor had pointed out to me a flaw in my sail settings I was doing much the same downwind. Now I remember why I bought an RS Aero!



But on Sunday afternoon, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, I went sailing by myself in an RS Aero 9 and worked on my proprioception. I find that if I want to focus on the nuances of boat-handling technique, and experiment with different ways of doing things to see what works best, and train myself to execute maneuvers in a consistent way, then I really need to get out on my own away from other boats and evil instructors blowing whistles and shouting, "Everybody tack NOW!" or "Follow me!"

I explored such burning questions as...

• how can I make smoother hand swaps after tacks and gybes?
• does it work better to have the front knee up or down when going into roll gybes?
• what are the best positions to sit and for my legs and feet upwind in various wind strengths and what's the best way to transition between them?
• what's the best position for legs and knees and feet for sailing downwind in various wind strengths?
• And many other similar secrets of the universe.

And then when I had figure out what worked best, I practiced and practiced to try and make all this stuff automatic.



I really enjoyed working on my own on improving my proprioception.

Or perhaps I am just an antisocial bastard.

By the way, don't ask me to explain what that picture at the top of the page has to do with proprioception.

But it does.

Trust me.



So what do you think?

How proprioceptive are you?

Upwind Speed in the RS Aero

Another Self Coaching video from Penny Clark, this one on upwind speed.

The good bit - i.e. the RS Aero bit - starts around 1:20.

Starting Drills in the RS Aero

Thanks to Judith Krimski, our awesome New England Laser District Secretary, for drawing my attention to this excellent video on how to practice starting skills by British Olympian turned coach, Penny Clark.

It shows some starting drills with a Laser Radial, an RS Aero and an RS 200 doing the demonstrations.

Especially nice to see a coaching video for the RS Aero. Let's hope we see a few more in the coming months.

12 Styles of Hiking in a Laser

Here's a fun video demonstrating twelve different styles of hiking in a Laser.

Thanks to @finalbeatsail and @RoosterSailing for sharing this on Twitter.

What is your preferred Laser hiking style?

11 Lessons I Learned from Sailing with Fleet 413 on Sunday

On Sunday I went racing with the Newport Laser Frostbite Fleet also known as Fleet 413.

It was a beautiful day for sailing. Temperature about 50 degrees and a 15 knot SW breeze.

I would often describe those as perfect conditions for Laser sailing, but Sunday's races were a humbling experience for me.

A learning experience in all sorts of ways.


Lesson #1: Laser sailing is not like riding a bike. 

Riding a bike

You do forget how to do it (properly) if you don't do it for a while.

At least I do.

I hadn't been Laser sailing for six weeks and it felt like a strange and difficult thing to do.

At least at first.



Lesson #2: Get out to the course early.

I was at Sail Newport in plenty of time but somehow I frittered the time away and didn't take my boat down to the beach until about 15 minutes before the start. Then I spent some time helping some other people to launch. Then I launched my own boat only to discover that my evil sheet had wrapped itself around both the boom and the tiller extension in one of those triple buntline carrick bend double surgeon's clinch knots, which it has a tendency to do at times. Then I capsized my boat trying to untangle the triple buntline carrick bend double surgeon's clinch knot. Then I spent a few hours (or it felt like it) actually untying the triple buntline carrick bend double surgeon's clinch knot. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

Triple buntline carrick bend double surgeon's clinch knot

As a result I only arrived at the start line just after the three minute signal for the first race and didn't have time to do all the things they tell you to do in the sailing books, like work out which was the favored side of the course and check out the start line bias and sail upwind for a while to check out the timing of the shifts and sail downwind for a while to check out how to play the waves.

Which is one reason I didn't do very well in the first race.

Or the second race.



Lesson #3: Buy a new sheet.

This sheet is old. This sheet is evil. Any sheet which will tie itself into a triple buntline carrick bend double surgeon's clinch knot deserves everything it has coming.

 I love the smell of burning sheets in the morning

Lesson #4. I am terrible at starts.

I really should concentrate on making 2016 the year I finally get around to working out how get better at starts.

After about 35 years of Laser sailing, it's about time. Seriously!

I could even blog about it.

Not me in not one of the starts on Sunday

Lesson #5. I did learn the lesson from Dave Perry about how it's better to overstand the starboard tack layline in a large fleet than to risk tacking below the layline.

Dave Perry

Well...... maybe I did overdo it a bit. Maybe I occasionally overstood too far. Maybe occasionally I hit the layline too far from the mark.

That's OK. I can gradually work on being more aggressive about when I hit the layline and when I tack. But at least I won't be having any more nightmares about not laying the mark.




Lesson #6.  Steve Cockerill is right.  Sailing a Laser downwind in 15 knots IS like dancing with Anne Widdecombe.

Dancing with The Right Honourable Anne Widdecombe

But that's OK. Dancing with Anne can be fun in a masochistic kind of way. Once you get the feel for how she's going to react to your moves (or not) it can even be sort of satisfying.

At least I didn't capsize on the downwind legs on Sunday like certain people did. You may have sailed in all kinds of fancy big boats but, in a Laser, The Right Honourable Anne Widdecombe can still trip you up.



Lesson #7. I am not bad at leeward mark roundings.

Seriously!

I did it like they tell you in the books.

In a crowd, I avoided getting trapped on the outside of the pinwheel and slowed down and rounded just behind the transom of the inside boat which sometimes gave me a good lane, and if not at least I had freedom to tack.

Pinwheel

And one time I saw a huge crowd in front of me going for the right hand gate mark (looking downwind) so I threw in a gybe and went for the left-hand gate mark and had clear air coming out of the mark and passed at least half a dozen boats on that leg.

But see Lesson #8.



Lesson #8. In a crowded fleet you need to approach the finish line on the starboard tack layline for the favored end of the finish line.

What was I thinking?

In what anyone could see would be a crowded finish I approached the finish line on starboard tack but shy of the layline for the port end of the line. As a result I had to tack on to port just a length or two short of the finish line. And it was a bad tack and I ended up in irons. And as I drifted backwards and desperately tried to get out irons, about ten boats passed me. Ugly!

Bad tack

Lesson #9. If I don't make any stupid mistakes I can easily finish in the middle of this fleet.

Apart from sucking at starts and a tendency to do stupid stuff, I have reasonable boat speed. I can hold my own downwind and (thanks to all that extra weight I put on over Christmas) I can sail faster upwind than the bottom half of the fleet in these conditions.

In the third race I did finish about mid-fleet.

I should have a goal to do at least as well as this in every race by the end of the season, and better if I can get good starts.

A goal

Lesson #10. When you don't sail for 6 weeks (and don't do much exercise of any kind in those weeks and eat too much over Christmas) you lose a lot of your fitness and stamina.

Too much Christmas dinner

After three races I had had enough. I was hiking hard on every beat and my back was feeling it.

Better to quit early than have another of those back problems which can put me out of sailing for many weeks.


Lesson #11. Sail against the best.

One of the lessons in Nick Craig's book, Helming To Win, is to "sail against the best." His advice is to "sail in fleets where the standard is high and above your own." Sailing against better sailors than yourself will sharpen you up. Observing and talking to top sailors is a great way to learn.

Sailing with Fleet 413 certainly qualifies.

I think I'll take a nap now.

Six Words of Sailboat Racing Advice - Learning Experiences

A few days ago I challenged readers to give me their best racing advice in six words.

There have been dozens of wise - and flippant - responses and they are still coming in.

But I wondered, what have I learned from my own racing experiences recently? How could I sum up those learnings in six words?



Racing with the Newport Laser frostbite fleet a couple of weeks ago, I discovered a counter-intuitive way to sail the first beat of a race in a highly competitive fleet and arrive at the windward mark up with the leaders. See Hubcap Diamond Star Halo 56th Sail.

Me

In one race I started at the "wrong" end of the line, I sailed the "wrong" side of the course, and I banged the corner.

But that meant I sailed the whole race in clear air and did the minimal number of tacks. In that race that strategy worked better (for me) than fighting for position on the crowded end of the line, fighting for a clear lane against all the top sailors in the fleet, and being bounced around doing multiple tacks in traffic on the busy side of the course.

Clean start and clear air wins.

Last month I sailed my RS Aero in a local fun pursuit race against an assorted menagerie of craft, the Archipelago Rally.  I came 2nd in the 43 boat fleet. See How I (Almost) Won the 2015 Archipelago Rally.

Some other sailors (behind me)

But I was very lucky. The tide situation favored the faster boats, but even more importantly the leading boats made not one, but two navigation errors! On a course that only had three rounding marks! And I happened to be placed to take advantage of their mistakes. It helps to be lucky but the real moral is...

Know the course. Write it down.

In July I sailed in the RS Aero North Americans in the Columbia River Gorge. I had a blast but on the first day of racing I capsized in three of the four races. I was pretty slow at capsize recoveries and my results were mediocre. See RS Aero Capsizes - Mission Accomplished and RS Aero North Americans.

Some other sailors (way in front of me)

In retrospect it was apparent that I had not practiced enough in the kind of conditions I should have expected in the Gorge - strong winds and short waves. Almost all of my RS Aero sailing in the summer had been done on a lake, on flat water, and usually in quite light winds. There are places in Rhode Island where I could have found conditions more similar to the Gorge and I should have done some RS Aero training there before going to the NAs. (I should have practiced capsize recoveries more too.)

Train for the conditions you expect.

Next year it will be different.

How about you?

Do you have any "learning experiences" from races or regattas that you can sum up in 6 words of advice?

The Best Racing Advice in Six Words

If you only had six words to pass on some advice about sailboat racing to a new racer, what would they be?

For example, the first answer that springs to my mind when faced with this question would be the somewhat cynical...

"Win the start. Extend your lead."

But I am sure you can do much better than that.

Please leave your answer in the comments to this post.

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This post was inspired by the post The Best Cruising Advice in Six Words on Windtraveler the excellent cruising blog about that "estrogen-rich family" Brittany, Scott, Isla, Haven and Mira. (The estrogen quote is theirs, not mine.)

That post was inspired by a recent New York Times contest calling for parenting advice in "six words or less" which was, itself, inspired by the book The Best Advice in Six Words: Writers Famous and Obscure on Love, Sex, Money, Friendship, Family, Work, and Much More.

Is that what they call a "meme?" Whatever they call it, please participate, and leave your answer in the comments.

Racing advice in six words.

First thing that comes into your head.

Now.

---

This challenge is a little reminiscent of the group writing projects we used to run on this blog.

For example in 2008 I asked people to write blog posts or articles on the theme of Best Sailing Innovation Ever which received 25 entries.

A couple of years later we turned that one on its head and had a group writing project on Worst Sailing Innovation Ever which had 28 entries.

Wurst - Worst. Get it?

Some of our group writing projects have had even more entries than that.

But today's challenge is a lot easier than writing a whole article.

Just six words.

Six words of racing advice.

How hard is that?

Please leave your answer in the comments.

Your name - or nom de plume - would be nice too.

"Nom de plume" is French for "name of pen."  Some stupid name you make up if you don't people to know who you are and, really, who could blame you.

Where was I?

Where am I?

Oh yes. Six words of racing advice.

Submit more than one idea if you feel like it.

In the comments to this post.

Now.

---

I don't know what I will do with all the answers.

Probably put them all in a separate post.

Maybe organize them into categories.

Perhaps use some of the best ideas as jumping off points to write some of my own blog posts, full of insane rambling and half-remembered reminiscences about races in which I used - or failed to use - your advice.

I'm not in this video but it does cover a situation which is pretty typical of my own racing career.

I really do need your advice.

How You Can Learn 13 Essential RS Aero Go Faster Tips - And Much More

So here I am - an RS Aero owner for a couple of months - and later this week I am flying out to Oregon to compete in the first RS Aero North Americans in the Columbia River Gorge.

Am I crazy?

Probably.

Although the good news is that most of the other sailors there won't have been Aero owners much longer than I have.

But the bad news is that some of them are very accomplished Laser sailors from the Pacific North-West who are also very familiar with the conditions in the Gorge. I fully expect to be seeing the transoms of those guys disappearing into the distance in every race.



So I may be crazy to be competing in this regatta, but the other reason I am flying 2,500 miles to race a boat that I don't yet know how to sail properly, is that on Friday there is a one day Aero clinic being run by Peter Barton, the RS Aero International Class Manager. Peter is the guy who has been running most of the lift-off days at Aero events in the UK (and then usually sailing in those events himself and winning them.) So the trip is a great opportunity to accelerate my Aero learning curve and learn all about Aero rigging and tuning and boat-handling and go-faster tips from a real expert.

Peter Barton
RS Aero Class Manager
Balls of steel

But what about Aero sailors who have not yet had the opportunity to attend one of Peter's clinics?

Well there is a way you can learn at least some of what Peter teaches at his clinics.

First of all you need to go and join the RS Aero Class Facebook group. You should do this anyway. It is an excellent source for RS Aero news and tips.

Then scroll down the Facebook page for the group and find the Aero Primer video that somebody recorded of Peter in Lymington and posted on June 29. It has almost 90 minutes of great advice on all those questions you have about Aero rigging and tuning and technique. (The quality of the video is not professional standard but it's perfectly OK for the purpose.)

You will learn (among many other things)...


How tight the battens should be.

How tight your toe strap should be.

Where to sit in the boat in very light winds.

What the maximum vang setting should be.

The correct way to take out your daggerboard.

How to set up the boat for upwind sailing in various conditions.

How Peter sails with only 3 different settings for his cunningham.

4 ways to depower in heavy winds (one of which won't occur to most Laser sailors.)

How technique for sailing an Aero downwind differs from what you would do in a Laser.

Where your feet should be in the toe-strap when reaching in very windy conditions

Where to position that splice in the continuous outhaul and downhaul lines.

What to do with the daggerboard to promote planing.

Sheeting technique for gybes.

Etc.

Etc.

---

Update - 23 July. Thanks to the wizardry of the technical team at Karlos Productions the video is now also available on YouTube.

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I expect I will have some adventures to post about next week.

Although I hope it won't be quite as exciting as when the Lasers experienced the Blowout of the Blowout.



I know that at least one of the sailors in this video has ordered an Aero and will be racing in the Aero NAs this weekend.

He's going back for more!

And you thought I was crazy?

Stellar!

Why are some days on the water kind of blah - and then just when you least expect it you have a day that brings a huge smile to your face?

Yesterday afternoon was one of those special sailing sessions that make you glad to be alive, glad you sail a Laser, and glad you have such good friends to go Laser sailing with.

The only word to describe it is… stellar.

Stellar - definition:

exceptionally good, outstanding, 

marvelous, outstanding, superb, 

first-rate, out of this world.

The omens were not good at first.

On Monday I had floated the idea to a few friends of sailing Lasers in Bristol on Tuesday afternoon 

We agreed to check the weather forecast on Tuesday morning.

One of my friends was concerned the winds would be too light.

I had seen some forecasts that suggested we would get showers and even thunderstorms.

Tuesday morning was very foggy with no wind.

In the end we decided to go sailing anyway.

At lunch time the fog cleared and a southerly breeze started to build up the bay.

When we launched in Bristol around 2:30pm there was a juicy 10-12 knot breeze from the south that was stirring up some interesting crunchy waves.

We raced WL courses with rabbit starts around a couple of government marks.

Somehow I had got it in my head over the winter that this is about the most boring way imaginable to spend a couple of hours on the water.

I was wrong. We all had a blast.

It was one of those days that repaid hiking hard, sailing the boat flat, and working the boat through the bigger waves upwind. In spite of my sore back on Monday after sailing on Sunday, I threw myself 100% into the fray and worked as hard as I could.

It felt fast upwind and my back wasn't hurting. Is adrenaline a painkiller?

Downwind it was possible to catch rides on some of better waves and I played around with different angles until I found out what seemed fast. I felt loose and relaxed in the boat.

I can't remember the last time I had so much fun in a Laser.

And so to Redlefsens for some pasta and a couple of glasses of Warsteiner Dunkel, and the usual exchange of information about why A was faster than B today and the usual trash talking about all our sailing friends who weren't there. (Only joking people.)

Stellar!

Back to the Laser

I have been neglecting her.

No, it's worse that that. Ever since I took delivery of my RS Aero, I have been totally ignoring her.

We have had so many good times together - and helped each other through a few bad times - for so many years and yet I just put her aside.

Yes it is true. Until Friday I hadn't sailed my Laser at all since that memorable day when my Laser and I crushed my friends in their Aeros on the last race of the day on May 17. Crushed!



Michael O'Brien from Seattle who has also been committing boat bigamy with a Laser and an RS Aero warned me. He said in a comment on A Tale of Two Boats …

"When you switch back to the Laser after sailing the Aero for a while, you will feel like you are driving a truck. The momentum and weight difference is dramatic."

So I took my faithful but neglected old Laser over to Bristol last Friday to give here some attention and renew my relationship with her.

I wasn't sure what to expect.

But it felt good.

It felt familiar

It was fun, even exciting at times.

It wasn't like driving a truck at all.

A truck

Phew! I was seriously worried that sailing an RS Aero for a few weeks might have killed my passion for  Laser sailing. Far from it. In fact it felt so good to be back in the Laser, almost as if my time in the Aero had re-energized my enthusiasm for the Laser. I guess I really am going to be a two boat sailor.

---

The next thing I was interested to explore was an initial answer to the question I asked myself in A Tale of Two Boats - would sailing an Aero help develop sailing skills that would also make be a better Laser sailor.

Sailing upwind in 6-8 knots I did notice three things…

1. I was much more sensitive to weather helm. I think I had got used to sailing the Laser with a heavy helm - because I wasn't sailing the boat flat enough - that I had grown to tolerate it. The Aero is very light on the tiller and now I was more sensitive to when the Laser had weather helm and was naturally trying to reduce it.


2. I was much more active in the boat - moving my upper body in and out a lot to balance the boat. Whether this was because I had got used to doing this in an Aero or whether it was in response to the extra sensitivity when the helm felt too heavy, I don't know. A Laser coach once told me that I am not active enough in the boat; I tended to lock my body in one position and hope that would work all the time. Sailing the Aero seems to have cured me of this fault in a Laser.


3. My tacks seemed a lot smoother and under control compared to how they were before in the Laser. I really don't know why, because I don't really feel I am doing good tacks in the Aero yet. Perhaps I am really comparing my current Laser tacks to my current Aero tacks, but I don't think so. Or perhaps in struggling to get my Aero tacks right I have somehow indirectly made my Laser tacks seem easier.

It's early days yet, and I wasn't comparing my boat speed to another boat. But it does seem that sailing the Aero may develop skills that will positively impact my Laser technique too.

---

On Sunday, I took my Laser out for a sail on Mount Hope Bay. I was expecting to be drifting around practicing my roll tacks, but almost as soon as I launched the wind picked up from under 5 mph to more like 17 gusting into the low 20s from the south-east.

So, I cranked down the cunningham and cranked on the vang and hiked as hard as I could and worked my way through the waves upwind for a couple of miles or more, towards Roger Williams University.

I have nothing positive to report at all about how sailing the RS Aero may have helped my upwind technique in a Laser in stronger winds. In fact quite the reverse. Either I am not hiking hard enough in the Aero, or maybe the Aero hiking position is so different from how you hike in a Laser, that it's no real help when you go back to the Laser. Whatever the reason those two upwind miles felt like damn hard work.

I have a vague recollection that after dinner I fell asleep on the living room floor. This morning my back feels like it always feels when I go back to Laser sailing after too many weeks off.  Sore.

Memo to self: the only way to keep fit enough to hike hard in a Laser is to do a lot of Laser sailing in heavier winds. Seriously.

But going back downwind, even though the wind had dropped a little, was pure pleasure.

I love my Laser

I love sailing on the bay.

I am a two boat sailor.

A Tale of Two Boats

I now own two boats.

A Laser and an RS Aero.

It seems hard to believe but it's less than four weeks since the Aero was delivered.

I have to admit that in those few weeks I have sailed the Aero more times than the Laser, partly because I was desperately trying to learn how to sail the boat properly in preparation for racing in the first RS Aero Regatta in North America this side of the Continental Divide.

But the longer term plan is to split my time more or less equally between the two boats.



The question I have is whether sailing two boats that are similar in some ways (both hiking single-handers) but very different in others (designed in different centuries - one half the weight of the other) will make me a better sailor in either or both boats - or just very confused.

Some of my Laser sailing instincts undoubtedly help me in sailing the Aero. Some of those instincts may be totally wrong for the Aero. I need to unlearn old habits and learn new ones for a new boat.

Some of the challenges I face in learning to sail the Aero might help me with the Laser. Better feel for balancing the boat downwind perhaps? More practice at capsize recoveries maybe?

I don't know.



In his classic book on self-coaching in sailing - SAIL, RACE AND WIN - Eric Twiname lists swapping boats and classes as one of the twelve main ways of learning, right up there with race experience and solo practice and group coaching.

Twiname quotes Garry Hoyt in support of this theory…

It happens to be great fun to learn the quirks and idiosyncrasies of different boats. You will also find that each class emphasizes some particular skill, and if you learn that class you will have learned that particular skill better than anyone else who has not sailed that class.

So what do you think?

Will sailing the RS Aero make me a better Laser sailor?

Will continuing to sail the Laser make me a better RS Aero sailor?

Or do you only become a good sailor in one class by devoting all your time on the water to that one class?



I would really like to to hear your experiences and opinions on this question.

Laser Hiking with Nick Thompson

Pursuing the theme I started on Tuesday of trying to get a good mental picture of an

aspect of Laser sailing technique in order to improve my own pathetic attempts at sailing a Laser fast… check out this video of British sailor Nick Thompson demonstrating correct Laser hiking technique going upwind in about 14-15 knots occasionally gusting more.

This is a screenshot taken at about 0:21 seconds.

Makes it look easy doesn't he?

Ha ha. Only joking. The shot above shows Nick's "just sitting comfortably in the boat while chatting to the camera and explaining what he is going to do in this video" pose. That is not how you sail a Laser upwind in 15 knots. Well, maybe if you weighed 250lbs this would work.

This is a screenshot taken at about 1:00. Now Nick has his feet in the perfectly adjusted toe-strap, toes pointing up, leg straight, quads tight to keep his bum out of the water, leaning back and hands high.

Hmmm, That looks a bit more strenuous.

But wait. It gets worse.



Just after this shot Nick says, "And then the hard bit. Lean back and keep that work rate up all the time. The harder you hike, the faster you go…. As the wave hits the boat the weight goes out and back."

You really have to watch the video from about 1:00 onwards to appreciate how active Nick is in the boat. Working the waves with his body. Working the sheet.  Steering aggressively. But here is one screenshot to give you an impression of what it's all about.

I can do that.

Well sort of.

For a short time.

A minute or two, perhaps.

But I'm not fit enough to do it all day long for multiple mile long beats.

And I bet if I put a GoPro camera on my boat, I would discover that I'm not really hiking like Nick Thompson at all. It just feels like I am.



Hmmm.

Maybe I'll just buy some of that cool Zhik hiking gear and a matching hat and PFD in a fetching shade of turquoise.

That should work?

Right?

Not Seeing the Wood for the Trees

During some of my Laser training sessions this spring I have tried to work on my starts - specifically the acceleration at the start.

I have tried to focus on each part of those vital seconds before the start - set the vang, bear away, sheet in, heel to leeward, flatten the boat, accelerate off the line etc. etc.

How fast or slow to do each part of the task?

What parts overlap with each other and what parts are sequential?

To scull down or not to scull down?

How many seconds does the whole process take?

What's happening with the tiller at each stage?

Am I leaving the line with the boat flat and at full speed and on a close-hauled course?



So much to think about.

So much to analyze.



Sometimes when you focus on the details of a piece of boat-handling you can lose yourself in the minutiae so much that you can't see the big picture.

Or as we say in English English you don't see the wood for the trees.

Sometimes it may be better to try and get a mental image of the whole maneuver and just absorb it and then let it flow.

So here is coach Jon Emmet showing us how to start - approx 0:25 to 1:15 in this video.

What do you think of Jon's starts, all you expert Laser sailors out there?

Would you do anything differently?



How do you learn best?

Are you a wood person or a trees person?

Experiment

Definition: An experiment is an orderly procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, refuting, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis.

Hmmm. What do experiments have to do with sailing?



I had a bit of a revelation about how important experimentation is to sailing during one long afternoon racing with the Duxbury Laser Fleet last year. I was not having a good day. I figured I was of a similar standard to the top 5 or 6 sailors in the fleet but somehow I never seemed to be at the front of the fleet that day. I was getting a bit frustrated to be perfectly honest. I thought I was sailing the boat well. I thought I had a good strategy and was getting good starts. But somehow it never paid off in my results.

After the racing was over and we were back on shore, I asked one of my friends, who had had some excellent races, what her strategy for the day had been. Her answer was something like, "Well, at first I thought the left looked good so I went that way in the first race but that didn't work out. So the next race I went right and that was worse. So after that I just played the shifts up the middle in every race and that seemed best, so I stuck with it."

Ahah! That explained a lot. In every race, I had checked the wind before the course and thought I could see more pressure on the left so I always went that way. And it never worked out. But I was stubborn and kept persisting in my failing strategy. In retrospect I think there was more pressure out to the left but often it was beyond the layline of our (short) courses and so it did me no good. What's the definition of insanity again?

Another of my friends had capsized while going downwind in one race. I asked him what had happened. "Oh, I rounded the windward mark in third place but I wasn't prepared to settle for that, so I tried sailing by an extreme angle by the lee and heeling to windward more than usual." It didn't work out for him but he was experimenting, trying something a bit different, getting out of his comfort zone, testing a hypothesis you might say… and in the process learning something.

It's OK to use some races as learning experiences. Eric Twiname said so in his classic book about self-coaching, Sail, Race and Win. In fact he recommended that you use some races to experiment with your technique, recognizing that this means your race results will probably get worse before they get better.

Now that I remember it, on that long afternoon last summer in Duxbury, I did notice that I was doing mediocre tacks. But I didn't do anything about it. I was trying too hard to do well in the races. In retrospect I should have said, "I am just going to use the next beat to work out why my tacks are all wrong and try some different things until I get it right. Bucket."



The reference to a bucket won't make any sense to you unless you listened to President Obama's speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner last Saturday night.





So that's another resolution for racing this year.

Experiment more.

Bucket.

Practice What You Don't Like

If you want to become a better sailor, you need to practice.

You know that.

But how do you practice? How do you even decide what to practice? 

I am pretty bad at practice. 

Typically what happens, especially in the spring, is that I take my Laser out for some "practice" - at least that's what I call it in my head. I sail around for 10 or 15 minutes to get warmed up and then I sail upwind for 20 minutes, say, and then back downwind to my starting point again. I'm really getting in the groove and enjoying the experience of being on the water in the spring sunshine, so I do another 20 minutes of upwind, and then back down again, maybe doing a bit of reaching and a few gybes if the winds are strong enough to make that interesting. I am thinking of how I am going to write up this sail on my blog and how much fun I am having and how lucky I am to still be able to do this at my age. Then I spot a buoy so I do a few practice leeward mark roundings and a couple of them really aren't too bad so I feel good about that. So then I go upwind again, maybe do a few extra tacks than I normally would and a couple of them really aren't too bad either so I feel good about that too. Then maybe I blast off on a reach to the other side of the bay or river just for fun, and then blast back again, and by now I'm feeling a bit hungry or thirsty so I go home and have a beer and it's time for dinner.

This of course is totally the wrong thing to do. Not the beer. The way I practice.

Deep down I have always known this, but I was reminded recently about why it's all wrong by another excellent post on Damian's Final Beat blog - Leeward Mark Roundings - Satisfaction Guaranteed. Damian admits to being very good at leeward mark roundings. He practices them more than anything else. He gets a lot of satisfaction from his excellent leeward mark roundings. That's one reason he practices them a lot.

Of course this is all backwards and wrong.

We shouldn't practice what we are good at and what we enjoy.

We should practice what we are bad at it so we can get better and eliminate the weak parts of our game.

And often we like least the things we are no good at, so a good guide is to practice things that we don't like.

Damian points out that this advice is in the quote below from Eric Twiname. I think it's in his classic book on self-coaching, Sail, Race and Win.

I have that book. I have read that book. I should know this. Deep down I do know this.

“…you tend to like and enjoy what you are best at, and as you give more thought and practice to these things you are most likely to improve them. By working instead at what you like least and are worst at, you get a … balanced approach (to your training)”

So that's resolution #1 for my training sessions this year. Practice the things I am worst at. Practice the things I don't like.

What would they be?

Windward mark roundings would make my list, for sure. For some reason I always lose places at windward marks. Or I end up on the wrong side of a bunch of boats when I know the other side is where I want to be strategically. Or I tack low of the layline and hit the mark. Or I overshoot the layline and lose a lot of distance. Or I overshoot the layline and let port-tackers tack underneath me. Or I have my sheet in a tangle and end up being unable to bear way until I have untangled the mess. There are so many ways I mess up in the approach to and the rounding of the windward mark, that this is one of the things I should really practice.

And leeward mark roundings where you have to do a gybe or two gybes just before the mark.

And capsize recoveries. I am really really slow at capsize recoveries.

And holding position before the start.

And accelerating fast at the start.

I could go on.

And on.



I was dreaming last night about being at a big Laser regatta.

And I had forgotten to bring my sail.

And my credit card.



I think I'll take a nap now.

I am an Asymmetric Sailor

I am an asymmetric sailor.

No, wait. If you say you are an asymmetric sailor when you are at Minorca Sailing people will assume you are one of those crazy dudes who sails all those boats with asymmetric spinnakers like the RS Vareo and RS100 and RS200 and RS400 and RS500 and RS800 and Musto Skiff.

Actually, some years at Minorca Sailing I did sail some of those boats. But I mean I am an asymmetric sailor in a different sense. My sailing skills are asymmetric. My skills are different on port and starboard tacks.

It shouldn't be so. The Laser is an (almost) perfectly symmetric boat. How you sail it one tack should be an exact mirror image of how you sail it on the other tack. (At least to my simple mind it seems like it should. Or am I missing something?)

But I discovered on our first Monday at Minorca Sailing this year that I am more asymmetric than I thought I was.

The morning session in the Advanced Laser Class was about downwind sailing. One of the drills we did was to tether our tillers and sail the boats without use of tiller at all. We had to bear away from a beam reach to sailing downwind; and then head up and bear away at will; transition from sailing a very broad reach to sailing by the lee and back again; and then gybe the boat.

It was all going perfectly well when I was on starboard tack. I could do everything I was supposed to do using the sheet, the vang and the heel of the boat. Of course, the point of the whole exercise was to teach us to sail downwind without using the rudder to force the boat to turn.

But on port tack I was awful. I couldn't make the boat do what I wanted to do. In the end I ended up doing an ugly death roll and capsize. I am an asymmetric sailor.

I rationalized that when I am racing I spend most of my time downwind on starboard tack unless there's a very good strategic reason to be on port. I think most Laser sailors do. So I have developed the skills of using my body weight to steer the boat on starboard, but my brain is not wired to do the same thing on port because it has hardly any practice at doing so.

This got me thinking. Are any of my other sailing skills asymmetric? I am naturally right-handed so am I better at steering with the tiller on port tack when my right hand is on the tiller? Do I do port to starboard tacks better than starboard to port tacks? Ditto for gybes?

I have no idea, but I do seem to recall some years ago realizing that I was kicking the sheet around the cockpit when tacking one way but not the other way. I had to slow things down and work out what I was doing with my feet differently when tacking opposite ways.

Then I looked at my sailing gloves (which were new at the start of the holiday.)

Do you see what I see? The forefinger of the right hand is starting to wear out faster than the forefinger of the left hand. I must hold the sheet more tightly with the right hand.

Oh geeze. I really am an asymmetric sailor.



Then I started wondering about other sports. Are they inherently asymmetric or do participants in those sports have to be concerned about being asymmetric in their skills when they shouldn't be?

What about rowing? If you are rowing with one oar, in an eight for example, it is essentially asymmetric. Do top rowers end up specialize in always rowing on the same side of the boat? If you row an eight, are you always a bow side or stroke side rower? But what if you have two oars? Don't the handles overlap? Does one hand always go on top? Inquiring minds demand to know. Well one inquiring mind does.

And how about kayakers? From my naive perspective that looks like a sport that should be perfectly symmetric. Or is it? Aren't you twisting the paddle to feather the blade in opposite directions from each side? Do kayakers have a problem in making sure that their strokes in each side are of equal strength? And what about when they start doing all those fancy rolls? Does each kayaker have a preference for doing rolls from left to right or right to left? Or do they train to be ambidextrous?

And then there's ice skating? All that spinning round and round? Are skaters asymmetric? Is each individual better at either clockwise or anti-clockwise spins?

Baseball and cricket of course are inherently asymmetric. In fact a whole part of the management of a baseball team is working out how to use your left-handed and right-handed players to match up best against the other team's left-handed and right-handed players.

Soccer players are usually better kickers with one foot aren't they? Or are they? Do they train to have equal skills with each foot? Does "ambidextrous" apply to feet, or is there some other word for it?

In fact the more I think about it, it's an issue that in some way or other must affect almost every sport. We often naturally have skills that are different on each side of our bodies and, depending on the sport, we have to work to capitalize on that or minimize it.

What about you?

Are you asymmetric?

How does it affect your favorite sporting activity?

Bonus points for anyone who can tell me ways in which the Laser actually isn't perfectly symmetrical!

Textbook!

As expected the video debrief on the Laser racing this evening at Minorca Sailing this year was somewhat embarrassing for me.

I settled in for the session with a large glass of beer to dull the inevitable pain.

First there was a shot of me sailing upwind on which the instructor made no comment even thought it looked to me like I was doing OK.

Then there was a shot of me sailing upwind on which the instructor pointed out to me that I wasn't sailing the boat flat enough and I should get my shoulders back more. Good feedback. Thanks.

Then there was a shot of me dropping the tiller in a tack and heading up and slowing down, so much in fact that I then had to duck a starboard tacker whom I thought I would cross. The instructor didn't need to make any comment. The many howls and hoots of derisions from the peanut gallery said it all.

I now hate those guys in the peanut gallery.

Those guys in the peanut gallery

Then a shot of me doing a leeward mark rounding. If I do say so myself, I thought it was pretty decent.

The instructor said it was "textbook."

Textbook!

I think that's a compliment.

It must be at least 20 years ago I went to a one day masters clinic at Wianno YC held before the Atlantic Coast Champs there. The coach was Brad Dellenbaugh. I still remember that Brad Dellenbaugh said I did an "excellent" gybe.

People remember positive feedback a long time.

Instructors and coaches and teachers should know that.



Textbook!

Hmmm.

And so to bed.

Don't Do Stupid Stuff

"Don't do stupid stuff" may not be a organizing principle for planning a campaign to be the best Laser sailor on the planet, but it sure is a mantra that can radically improve your results when racing in a small local fleet.

Two Sundays ago I raced with the Duxbury Laser fleet. I only did one really stupid thing (capsizing while tacking - don't ask - I have no idea why it happened) and I won a number of races and was first overall for the day.

Yesterday I raced again with the Duxbury Laser fleet and did lots of stupid stuff. As a result my results were abysmal. But I still had fun.



Somehow I won the first race. I did that last week too. Maybe I warm up and get in the groove faster than the other sailors. But it was all downhill from there.

In the second race I was OCS and had to go back to restart. In a close fleet on a short course it only takes one incident like that to dump you way down the fleet. Actually I don't really count one OCS in nine races as stupid stuff. I almost take pride in it because it shows I am being aggressive on the start line and I did have some very good starts in the other races so that was all good.

In the next race I tried to cross a starboard tacker on the beat and he just clipped my transom. That's really stupid stuff. I should know better.

I did my 720 for that incident. Later in the day I asked the fleet captain whether the local rule was a 360 or a 720 for boat to boat rule violations. Turned out it was a 360 (as it is in some other local fleets.) Not knowing the local rules (or reading the SIs) is more stupid stuff.

In another race I was behind two boats coming into the gybe mark. I figured the outside one would round wide and I would be able to follow the transom of the inside boat and sneak inside the outer boat. I was wrong. He closed the gap on me. I ended up going the wrong side of the gybe mark AND hitting it. Duh! More stupid stuff.

Then there was another race where I was leading and I was heading for the right hand gate mark on starboard tack, but another boat managed to get an overlap to windward of me on what would be the inside well before we entered the zone. So, as leeward boat, I sailed him way to the right of the mark, gybed and entered the zone clear ahead. I was pretty pleased with myself for about a millisecond, until I tried to gybe again and round the mark. I dropped my tiller AND rounded up head to wind AND hit the mark AND snagged the mark's line with my rudder  (don't ask - I have no idea why it happened) AND dragged the mark upwind a few boat lengths before I figured out what was happening. Quintuple duh! Lots of stupid stuff. The other guy was so disgusted at my antics that he wisely decided to keep well clear of me so he went round the other gate mark and beat me handily as did most of the rest of the fleet by the time I had disentangled myself.

So yes. I did lots of stupid stuff yesterday. If I hadn't done so much stupid stuff my finishes would have been so much better.



On the other hand, look on the bright side...

Tillerman's stupid mistakes were fodder for much hilarity and teasing over beers at the Milepost Tavern later. I suspect it will take me a few weeks to live it all down. I am pleased that I am able to afford my friends so much amusement.

We do learn from our mistakes, don't we? I figure the memories of yesterday's mistakes are so seared in my mind that I probably won't make the same mistakes again for a while.

And when I do lots of stupid stuff, at least it gives me something to blog about.



PS. Yesterday was my 42nd day of Laser sailing this year. My regular (male) readers know what's coming next…