30 Degree Disease

Warning: There's been high levels of 30 degree disease detected in this region of the United States. You may all be at risk. It may be spreading to the Charles River area and could reach epidemic proportions if proper precautionary measures are not taken.
We must fight this disease with fury because even one case is too many.
We must have antitoxin.

Proper stretching exercises are required. Before each race we must routinely turn our heads alternately to the left and then to the right. If need be, place the chin upon each shoulder to ensure a full range of motion is achieved. Now that we know our head is physically capable of turning without injury or pain, we must indulge in the experience on the race course. Instead of the head being an immovable object, buried into the jib tell-tales, consider the enlightening experience of turning the head 30 degrees upwind and feeling the wind directly upon the nose. Let it flow along your cheeks and create an equal air pressure sensation to each ear. "Feel" the wind.
This gives us an accurate reading of the strength and direction of the "Breeze of the Moment". But there must be more. There must be consideration for where the breeze will go next and how we might use it to beat to the windward mark more quickly and sail the shortest distance possible. Yes, anticipating breeze is a more difficult task but alas, there is hope in the cure.

Cured of 30 degree disease, a sailor may now, with proper head position, be able to not only feel the existing breeze better but can use eyesight as a porthole to better anticipation, smarter route decisions, and shorter distances sailed. Yes, now that the eyes are no longer focused on the jib tell-tales, the boats around you, the water directly in front of your bow or your proximity to a coffin corner, they can now focus directly into the wind and scan for changes as the wind to windward, flows to leeward, from the top course to the bottom of the course, often oscillating along the way. Cured of 30 degree disease, a sailor is able to constantly monitor this fuel that propels his craft and be connected with it, united with it, and develop a personal relationship.

Cured of 30 degree disease, a sailor may now, with proper head position, be able to detect a small spherical object bobbing about with greater ease. It calls to you, it always has, but cured of 30 degree disease, you will be able to hear its song. You will be more tuned in and you won't dare touch that dial. Armed with the knowledge of basic geometry it will now be easier to recognized which road to take because the destination is clear. There are only two roads (starboard and port tack), why take the road the parallels the destination when you can take the one that hastens the journey?
Why sail to the sides when you can sail to the front (to the buoy)? When we talk about good slants, we talk about slants to the buoy first, not to the other boats. Cured of 30 degree disease, you are able to look at the buoy and determine your slant to it. If that angle is not "above 45" and the opposite angle looks to be, then you must have a really good reason to be staying on a road that isn't efficiently taking you to your destination. Often you don't have a real good reason, but instead, poor reasoning, like "I gotta get to this side of those boats". Or you have a bad sense of direction, which is distinct symptom of 30 degree disease.

30 degree disease.
Knowing of its existence in you, is half the battle,
and brings you half-way towards a cure.


-Coach


Next Week: 90 degree disease, and how it applys to the full starting sequence.