Top 5 Technical Tips For Racing Success

Never mind all that stuff about weather forecasts and strategy and tactics and fitness and mental attitude and boat-handling...

All that stuff is really hard.

Here are five simple technical tips for racing success from Peter Bentley, the Technical Projects Manager for the British Sailing Team.

Everyone can do these things...



What do you think?

Do you do these five things?

If you don't, which one do you think would most improve your racing performance?

Some Madman There Going The Wrong Way

I found this photo on the Laser Fleet 413 Facebook page. I think it must have been taken when I was racing in Newport on Feb 21 - the day of my wardrobe malfunction.

That's me in 157812 - apparently sailing the wrong way. Or at least the opposite way to almost everybody else.

It reminded me somewhat of that famous Irish commentary on the Radial racing at the 2012 Olympics.

Check out what happens at 0:40.

Laser Radial Womens Worlds 2015

The Laser Radials Womens Worlds are being held in Oman this week.

All the world's top women Radial sailors are there - including the contenders for medals at the Olympics next year.

After ten races, going into the final day, Anne-Marie Rindom (DEN) and Evi Van Acker (BEL) are tied on points, with Marit Bouwmeester (NED) the reigning World Champion and silver medalist at the London Olympics in 2012 just four points behind these two.

Anne-Marie Rindom 

Evi Van Acker 

Marit Bouwmeester

Who will be the new world champion?

Will these women be among the medal winners in Rio!?

Mirror Mania!

Was the Mirror Dinghy the start of the dinghy sailing boom in the UK?

Is it the reason why Britain has won more Olympic gold medals in sailing than any other nation?

Paige Railey Looks Cool in Sailing Helmet

Paige Railey (USA) after winning the medal race at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Miami today, a result good enough to place her 4th overall in the regatta.

Paige was injured in a biking accident last year and was forced to miss the major sailing events in the latter part of 2014. Her first regatta after the accident was the Lauderdale Olympic Classes Regatta earlier in January, which she won.

Congratulations to Paige and best wishes for continued success in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics.

And there's an even better photo of Paige looking cool in a sailing helmet here.

Georgiy Explains Why Brits Are Such Awesome Sailors

“The Australians, British and New Zealanders are island people. Communicating with the sea and sails is in their DNA. This is an entire culture passed down from generation to generation. Half of those countries’ populations are interested in sailing.” 

So says Georgiy Shaiduko, senior vice president of the Russian Yachting Federation, member of the Executive Committee of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) and silver medalist in the Soling at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

I guess that's it then. The USA isn't an island. Canada isn't an island. Brazil isn't an island. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands aren't islands.  All you nations that aren't islands might as well shut down your Olympic sailing campaigns now.

Georgiy says that sailing isn't in your DNA. You don't stand a chance.

We Brits, with some help from the Aussies and the Kiwis, will crush you every time.

Hmm. I wonder if Georgiy knows who is going to win the America's Cup?

And if sailing is in my DNA, why am I such a crap sailor?

Scoring Experiment

I see that at the ISAF World Cup racing in Miami this week, the organizers are experimenting with a slightly different scoring system for the Laser and Laser Radial Classes. The winner of each race is given a zero score - instead of one point. All other places are unchanged, i.e. 2nd place boat gets 2 points, 3rd place gets 3 points and so on.

I can only guess that the reason is to give a "bonus" to the sailor who actually wins each race?

Back in the day when I first started racing, the standard system was to give the winner of each race three-quarters of a point. This functioned as a sort of a tie-breaker because, for example, a first and a third place would be a better score (by a quarter of a point) than two second places. Although I think the current tie-breaker system is mathematically equivalent in all realistic scenarios I can imagine.

Any idea why it was decided to experiment in this way?

What do you think of it?

Go Fly a Kite

Go fly a kite.

Or maybe not.

First we heard that kiteboards will be in the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Now ISAF has reversed that decision at their conference in Ireland this week.

Kiteboards are out. Windsurfers are back in. At least for 2016.


The final classes for sailing in the 2016 Olympics are...

Men's Board - RS:X
Women's Board - RS:X
Men's One Person Dinghy - Laser
Women's One Person Dinghy - Laser Radial
Men's 2nd One Person Dinghy - Finn
Men's Skiff - 49er
Women's Skiff – 49erFX
Men's Two Person Dinghy - 470
Women's Two Person Dinghy - 470
Mixed Two Person Multihull – Nacra 17 5


What do you think of these classes as representative of our sport?

Will these choices be good for the future of sailing?

Which one are you going to be sailing?

Piddle

The Piddle

Tillerwoman and I are spending a few days staying up the Piddle River valley in the English county of Dorset.

Today we drove down to Weymouth, home of the Olympic sailing events in 2012, and headed over to the Nothe Fort, which I had read on some blog or other is the best place to watch the sailing. We arrived in plenty of time to snag an excellent viewing spot on the grassy bank overlooking the area where the medal races are held.

Place where crazy Aussie and Kiwi and Irish fans 

cheer on their Olympic sailors - honestly

We settled down and waited for the arrival of all those enthusiastic Aussie and Kiwi and Irish sailing fans I had heard about.

There weren't any boats out sailing yet, but the winds were light so I assumed they were holding the fleets under a postponement flag over at the National Sailing Centre.

Not a very interesting photo of the medal races
 at the 2012 Olympics in Weymouth

As we waited for the action I wondered which classes' medal races we would see today. (I had neglected to check the schedule on the Google.)  I hoped we would see some exciting action - perhaps one of those classes where there were 3 or 4 boats in with a chance of the gold medal, or perhaps one where one sailor had to match race one other to clinch the gold.

We waited for quite a long time.

Still no boats.

No other crazy sailing fans either.

Hmmm.

After a while Tillerwoman got bored of not watching sailing and demanded to be taken to a local oyster bar for lunch.

Perhaps we came on the wrong day?

Did I miss the boat again?

Oh Piddle!

You're Fired!

It had to happen.

When the best group of athletes you can assemble fails dismally, what else can you do? Fire the coach.

And so that's what has just happened to the head coach of the US Olympic Sailing Team who failed to win a single medal at this year's Olympic Games.

A statement from US Sailing this week, makes it clear that Kenneth Andreasen (High Performance Director/ Head Coach) is toast, gone... fired.

And buried in the corporate boiler-plate that always accompanies such announcements is a clue to what this might mean for the future direction of US Olympic sailing.

After careful consideration, it is clear that we need to take a new direction on the performance side of the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Program. That direction will include a sharper focus on the performance development of sailors and classes, boatspeed, and being a technically superior team.

Ouch. Boatspeed! You ain't going to win many Olympic sailing medals without boatspeed for sure.

The statement goes on...

Kenneth has been committed and dedicated to U.S. Olympic Sailing. He deserves credit for, among other things, his emphasis on class teamwork and fitness, positives in our program that we will continue to build on.

Hmmm.

Andreasan was the one with the emphasis on "class teamwork" and "fitness" was he?

These two planks of the program have certainly been well publicized in US Sailing press releases and individual sailors' blog in the last few years. Boot camps in the Rockies. Lots of team building exercises. Training together as a team.

I have to say I've had my doubts about the focus on these two issues - especially if they were at the expense of other important stuff. Like being technically superior. Or boatspeed.

Don't get me wrong, fitness is certainly important in all the Olympic classes. At my mediocre level, getting fitter is probably the best thing I could do to improve my sailing performance. But beyond a certain level I suspect there is a law of diminishing returns for elite sailors. Once you can hike or trapeze all day at maximum effort, what do you really gain by being able to bench press another 10 lbs or run 100 yards a tenth of a second faster?

The emphasis on "class teamwork" has troubled me even more. Sure it must be helpful and even reassuring for Olympic hopefuls to have the support of fellow team members. But is there a downside too? Don't Olympic sailors need to be totally single-minded and ruthless in the pursuit of first a place at the Olympics and then an Olympic medal? Aren't the other team members actually your competition when you are trying to win Olympic selection? If you are the best sailor in the US in your class, do you really want to train with the other team members trying to knock you off your perch?  Won't you do better by training with the top sailors from other nations?

Of course I am no expert on these matters. But when did this ever stop me from opining on any topic on this blog?

But don't take my word for it. Read this post - The US Sailing Team - Does One Size Fit All? by John Bertrand (who is an Olympic sailing medallist himself and a highly respected coach.) Bertrand's post is about a talented young Finn sailor, Luke Lawrence, who made the US Sailing Development Team but became frustrated at the lack of coaching support he was receiving.

Luke was not satisfied with his results after his first two World Cup regattas. Luke, being the newbie in the four-boat team, was frustrated with the lack of on-the-water support he was receiving and how he was being treated by the coach. At times he was hard pressed to get access to the coach boat to get food and water, let alone access to Andreasen for post-race observations, because the priority was Zach Railey and Brian Boyd, the number one and two US team sailors. Luke, as a committed, motivated sailor, needed Andreasen's knowledge and experience, but simply wasn't getting it.

So Luke hired John Bertrand as his personal coach to supplement the support he was receiving from the US Sailing coaches. And then he was accused by the US Sailing powers-that-be of not being a team player and effectively banned from the team! Read the full post. Bertrand has some insightful observations on the relative merits of team and individual coaching, and what has made sailors from other nations (GBR - yeah!) so good, and even on why Zach Railey's performance was not up to his expectations under this US Sailing "team" philosophy.

I wish US Sailing well in their search for a new Head Coach and in developing an improved focus for the Olympic program in the next 4 years.

BOATSPEED! Yeah!

Is It Really About The Money?

Dean Brenner, the outgoing chair of the US Sailing Olympic Committee, has been remarkably brave and open in answering questions about his team's dismal performance in a thread on Sailing Anarchy The Dean Comes Clean.

Kudos to him for that.

I was struck by a comment he made in a discussion about allocation of funding...

From 2005-2008, Zach Railey and Anna Tunnicliffe got relatively little funding. They had not yet earned it. But they never complained, they worked hard, they got their results where they needed to be and their funding changed dramatically.

Just to remind you, in the 2008 Olympics, Anna won the gold medal in Laser Radials and Zach won the silver medal in the Finns. All with "relatively little funding" from US Sailing apparently. And these were the only sailing medals that the US won that year.

In the 2012 Olympics the US didn't win any medals. Anna was the skipper of the women's match racing team that came 5th in their event. Zach came 12th in the Finns. This time their funding had changed "dramatically." Dramatically upwards presumably.

 Hmmm.

 Is funding really the problem?

How do do two sailing stars perform worse after 4 years of "dramatically" greater support from US Sailing?

"A Heck of a Wake-up Call"

Number of medals won by USA at Olympic Games/ number of sailing events.

1948 Torquay   4/5

1952 Harmaja  3/5

1956 Port Phillip  2/5

1960 Naples  2/5

1964 Sagami Bay  5/5

1968 Acapulco  2/5

1972 Kiel 3/6

1976 Kingston 3/6

1980 Tallinn - USA Boycott

1984 Long Beach  7/7

1988 Pusan  5/8

1992 Barcelona  9/10

1996 Savannah  2/10

2000 Sydney  4/11

2004 Athens  2/11

2008 Qingdao  2/11

2012  Weymouth  0/10

Sources: US Sailing 1948-2000  and Wikipedia 2004 and 2008


Dean Brenner, outgoing chairman of the U.S. Olympic Sailing Program - "This is not the distinction this team was going for. Listen, there's no hiding. There's no way to spin it. There's no way to suggest anything other than we didn't perform."


U.S. Sailing President Gary Jobson - "A heck of a wake-up call. In essence, we weren't competitive in any class. I was a little surprised, and, like all American sailors, disappointed. The question for me is, what do we do about it? I can't predict how the review will go, but I can tell you it's going to be thorough. This isn't going to stand long-term."

China Rising

2008 - Olympic gold medal in Laser Radials - USA
2012 - Olympic gold medal in Laser Radials - CHN

Is this a metaphor for something more fundamental?

Pigeon Toed

Thanks to Doug of Improper Course for this overhead shot of Tom Slingsby sailing to Olympic Gold in the Laser Medal Race today.

I was puzzled by one aspect of his hiking style. Why is he pointing his toes inward?

Is this his normal hiking style? Is there some advantage to this? Do other top sailors do this? Does everybody except me do this?

Is olc an ghaoth nach séideann do dhuine éigin

OK. OK. OK.

I admit it.

I am just as bad as predicting the winners of sailing regattas as I am at sailing in them.

As of now I seem to be only 1 for 3 in predicting who will do well in the singlehanded classes at the Olympic regatta.

The one I got right was Slingo in the Lasers.  After 4 races, Tom Slingsby of Australia is leading the standings but he only has a 4 point lead over Pavlos Kontides of Cyprus who won both races today. Who? Sorry. Never heard of him, but I see he was in the top ten at the 2010 and 2011 Worlds. Only 22 years old. Good for him.

But based on results so far, I was totally wrong in my prediction that Big Ben Ainslie would dominate the Finn class. He has been completely upstaged by Jonas Hogh-Christensen of Denmark who has beaten Ben in all 6 races so far and leads him by 10 points. That virtual person Noodle who only exists in some imaginary reality Second Life is virtually peeing her virtual pants with virtual excitement about Jonas. With only 4 races left until the medal race, Big Ben is going to have to turn on the jets if he is going to win a gold medal this year. It's going to be interesting.

In the Radials I hedged my bets and implied that the Olympic regatta was going to be a closely fought competition between a group of women who have all been doing well internationally in the last year or two. I didn't expect anyone to dominate the regatta. Wrong! Surprising all the pundits (well surprising me anyway) Annalise Murphy of Ireland has won every single one of the 4 races held so far. Trailing by 12 and 14 points in 2nd and 3rd are the ladies from Belgium and the Netherlands whom I did pick as favorites. And Alison Young of Great Britain whom I also picked is only 3 points further back in 4th.

Pause for patriotic singing of Jerusalem, God Save the Queen, Hey Jude, celebrations of the industrial revolution, the National Health Service, the World Wide Web and Mary Poppins, and a sketch by Mr. Bean... and frenzied chants of "GBR GBR GBR!"

Oh sorry. Got carried away a bit there. Still haven't got over that opening ceremony.

Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes, Annalise Murphy from Ireland.

To be fair I did sorta kinda give her a tip of the hat as one of "a few others I could mention... who probably also have a good shot at a medal this year." Let me honor her properly in this post by including a couple of pictures of her too.

As sailors say in Ireland, "Is olc an ghaoth nach séideann do dhuine éigin."

It's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody some good.

And in other sailing news...

Laser Girls Kick Ass

If it's easy to pick the favorites in the Finn and Laser classes at the Olympics this year, it's impossible to be so definite about the women in the Laser Radial event. There's a fairly large group of ladies who have been doing well in all the big international regattas over the last year, but no single sailor has been dominating the Radial class the way that Big Ben and Slingo have doing in the Finns and Lasers.


There's Marit Bouwmeester from the Netherlands who was the 2011 World Champion, but couldn't do better than fifth at this year's Worlds and Sail for Gold.

Marit Bouwmeester

There's Evi Van Acker from Belgium who was second to Marit at the 2011 Worlds, and who has been in the top three at pretty well very major event she has sailed in the last year. But she slipped to sixth at Sail for Gold in Weymouth last month.

Evi Van Acker

And you can never ignore Lijia Xu from China, the Olympic bronze medallist in 2008, second in this year's Worlds, and the winner in major regattas at Miami, Hyeres and Melbourne in the last year.

Lijia Xu

The Olympic silver medalist from 2008 is also returning this year. Gintare Volungeviciute Scheidt from Lithuania won the 2012 World Championship in Germany a couple of months ago. And if that last name sounds familiar, yes she is also Mrs Robert Scheidt, so she probably gets lots of Laser go-faster tips in her pillow talk.

Gintare Volungeviciute Scheidt

The gold medalist in the Radials in 2008 was, of course, Anna Tunnicliffe who is representing the USA as part of the women's match racing team this year.  Judging by this photo from the ESPN The Magazine: Bodies We Want 2012 feature, Anna is still pretty hot in a Radial.

Anna Tunnicliffe

Sari Multala of Finland is one of the most experienced sailors in the fleet. She was fifth in the women's singlehanded class at both the Sydney and Athens Olympics, Radial World Champion in 2009 and 2010, and is definitely on form again this year with a third at the Worlds and second at Sail for Gold.

Sari Multala

Update: July 28. The original photo I posted was not of Sari Multala and has been replaced by the one above..


And let's not forget Alison Young of Great Britain who took first place at Sail for Gold in Weymouth last month. Maybe she has peaked at just the right time?

Alison Young

Pause for patriotic singing of God Save the Queen and frenzied chants of "GBR GBR GBR!"

...
...
...


Paige Railey of USA may not have had quite the stellar results in the last year or so as the women above, but look at this face. Wow! Does she want it bad? Do not underestimate this lady.

Paige Railey

And there are a few other I could mention, like Annalise Murphy of Ireland And Krystal Weir of Australia, who probably also have a good shot at a medal this year.


It's going to be interesting...

Training Hard

I was so inspired by writing this week about such great Olympic sailors as Ben Ainslie, Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison that I've stepped up my own training efforts.

 I've been working hard all week.

 I'm already up to page 83 of Goodison's book.

Slingo

Continuing my series of posts about the upcoming Olympics, it's time to decide who is going to win the Laser class.

Well, you would have to say that Tom Slingsby from Australia is the favorite. World Champion in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Winner of Sail for Gold at Weymouth in June (this year and last year.) Winner of the Olympic test event last year.

But he was also the favorite going in to the 2008 Olympics in China, and he finished 22nd there. What was that all about?

The gold medal winner in 2008 was, of course, Paul Goodison of Great Britain.

Pause for patriotic singing of God Save the Queen and frenzied chants of "GBR GBR GBR!"

So can Paul Goodison beat Slingo in this year's Olympics too? That is the question.

According to my sources, Goodo and Slingo have a bit of a feud going...

The rivalry stems from Beijing where Goodison won the gold medal and Slingsby slumped to a shock 22nd place. 

Then in 2011, at a world cup event in Mallorca, Goodison accused Slingsby of colluding with another GBR Laser sailor, Nick Thompson, to try and prevent him qualifying for the 2012 Olympics. 

Goodison then had a heated argument with Slingsby, a cage fighting fanatic, after June's Sail for Gold world cup event in Weymouth, southwest England. The Briton accused Slingsby of blocking him during the race - something Slingsby flatly denies.

Wait. Did they say CAGE FIGHTING?

This could get interesting...

Big Ben

Wait. It's almost the end of July?  Sailing at the Olympics starts in a few days?  How did that creep up on me so fast?

I need to do some research on who the top sailors in each class are, and who is going to win the medals, and which country will win the most sailing medals. My friends, ace reporters Buff Staysail and Sassi Tweet, who are covering the Games for Team JP, are depending on me.

Let's see. There are boys and girls in 470's, and boys in 49ers and Stars, and boys and girls on windsurfers, and boys and girls on keelboats. It's so confusing. Who are all these people?

Maybe I should just stick to what I know best. Singlehanded boats. The Finn, the Laser and the Laser Radial.

Hmmm.

OK. Call me crazy, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say that Ben Ainslie will win the gold medal in the Finn, thereby confirming his reputation as the greatest Olympic sailor of all time on the planet in the history of the universe.

"But what makes Ben so good?" I hear you ask.

After extensive research (aka as Googling "What makes Ben Ainslie so good?") I see that the BBC has the answer at this link - London 2012. What makes GB sailor Ben Ainslie so good?

Wait. All I get is this message: "Cannot play media. Sorry, this media is not available in your territory. Available to UK users only."

Ah ah. Those Brits are devilishly clever. They are not telling all the world Ben's secrets before the Olympics. Take that you Aussies!

Let's see what the Guardian has to say. They have an article - Ben Ainslie: "There are 12 guys who could beat me to London 2012 gold."

What?  The Guardian reporter rambles on about how good Ben's competition is, how old Ben is, about Ben's bad back, about Ben's bad ankles, etc. etc. etc.

Oh, I get it. This is just a classic piece of disinformation designed to lull Ben's competitors into a false sense of security. These British sailors will stop at nothing to win.

So what does make Ben so good?

Maybe YouTube has the answer.