A Few Lessons From the Last Few Months

After taking almost 2 months off after the Laser Worlds, I am getting back into full rig sailiing. Over that time, I have been working on my fitness, and have taken the opportunity to sail on Farr40, Sydney 38, and Laser Radial with some succes(2nd at Australian Farr40 Nationals, 1st at Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta-Sydney 38, and 1st at the Mens Radial World Championships). It has been a wonderful opportunity, and I have learnt heaps sailing these other boats.

I have had some really big takeaways during that time. First, I realized how important fitness is to sailing success-no matter what boat you sail. From my laser experience, fitness has a direct and dramatic impact on your boatspeed, however I thought that you just needed to be reasonably fit to sail on a yacht. Not so... Being fit will improve your grinding, trimming, hoisting, and most of all, will make you less likely to fatigue from race to race and day to day. On boats like Farr40s where there is a set weight limit, you need to make sure that every pound counts, and is more then just moveable ballast. Races are won and lost by feet, and if you are able to consistantly hoist 1 second faster then your competition, those gains will add up over the course of an event.

Second, I learnt the importance of pacing yourself in your preparation for a major event. While you don't want to slack off until the month or week before, you need to have an understanding of what needs to be done and when. More isn't always better, which brings me to my next point. All to often, people(myself included) have gone out and put in hours and hours of junk miles. While they will help your fitness they often detract from the ultimate goal. Training should always be done with purpose, and by going out and putting in hundreds of hours of junk miles, you often diminish your motivation, and typically end up practicing bad habits. If the intensity isnt there, then go in, and come back when you are ready. It is as simple as train like you would race. If you train at 50% intensity, you shouldnt expect to race at much more then 50% intensity. Obviously, you need to make sure that you break the skills down into managable chunks, but always train them with intensity.

Third, all to often, people follow the the basic general rules of thumb way to much(eg tack when you can cross, sail the long tack first, etc). Rules are meant to be broken. To call tactics successfully, you need to constantly be analyzing what is happening on the course in terms of pressure, wind direction and current. Then you need to assess what other boats are doing, your confidence in your judgement, and determine the amount of risk you are willing take. Often, you will end up following the general rules, but there will be plenty of times when you successfully dont.

Fourth-be prepared to back yourself. I have seen many different tactical styles of racing. Some people are very conservative and not willing to take much risk while others as much more likely to take risk. This has been one of the biggest things I have learnt over the last couple of months. Watching Slingo call tactics on the farr has really opened my eyes to why he wins so many events, as when he is confident in his decisions, he backs them.

Mens Radial Worlds

The mens laser radial world championships ended a couple of days ago. Being my first radial event, I did not expect much. My preparation did not help my confidence, as the total amount of radial sailing I had done in my life consisted of 4 days of training immediately prior to the event.

Going into the event, I knew that my unpwind rig setup would need the most attention, as the radial and full rig setups are quite different. Being at least 10kg overweight for the boat, I thought I would try to power up the rig like I do in the full rig by dropping the foot out and leaving the cunningham completely off until I started to get overpowered. However, with the help of Brad Funk and Eric Stibbe, I quickly learnt that the extra power was ineffective as the foot quickly became too deep, and leaving the cunningham off meant the draft was to far aft leading to excessive weather helm. Also, I found the leach quite tight and hooked, and pulling on a touch of cunningham helped add a bit of twist into the sail allowing a bit wider groove.

Fortunately for a fatty like myself, we had good breeze all week, with the breeze dropping below 10 knots in only one race. The conditions were absolutely prefect with waves that were ideal for downwind surfing. We spent all week catching amazing rides-I wish every event I sail has conditions as great as we had in Takapuna!

Along with my surprising result at this event, I had many takeaway lessons from this event. My two major goals for the event were to expand my knowledge of sail trim, and to determine where the breakdown in my decision making process is when I am under stress. I am happy to report that both goals have been accomplished, and it is a huge relief to have isolated the mental hurdle that has plagued me in the past. I am really excited about figuring this out, and now will focus extensively on improving this area.

Transfusion Farr 40 Racing

Over the past few weeks, I have enjoyed a bit of time away from sailing my laser, and have gotten back into the Farr 40 racing for the remainder of the Australian circuit.

The first regatta back was the Sprint Series held out of the CYCA. This was a two day regatta, and follows a slightly different format then the normal Farr 40 regattas: the races are shorter, and racing was held inshore on the Sunday. It was a bit of a rough event for team Transfusion as we had not sailed together as a crew for quite some time. We ended up 5th overall, but came away with some good takeaways from the event.

The following weekend, we raced the Australian nationals out of RSYS. After a bit of boatwork during the week, and the crew hiking significantly harder, our boatspeed showed considerable improvement from previous regattas earlier on in the season. This certainly reflected in the results as we were sitting second after the first day of racing. We had the same scores on the second day of racing, and went into the final day on equal points with second. On the last day, Tom Slingsby, the boat's tactician, did an awesome job of getting us off the line and putting us in solid positions around the racecourse. We ended the day with a 1,4,1 to win boat of the day. Unfortunately, it was not enough to catch Kokomo, who sailed consistantly at the front of the fleet for the entire event. We ended up 2nd in the nationals, and 2nd on the Australian circuit-a great way to end the boat's first season!