Practice Notes

Practice Notes

Again, I think we had a good practice and I hope you feel the same.
It's great to have 13 boats on the staring line. The first thing we did were "Ball Starts". I sent you an email on Ball Starts and I suggest you read it again or ask me to resend it. Next we did a simple weave but it's not so simple if you learn to release that tight grip on the tiller and start using your sails and weight to turn. Anyone can just use the tiller to steer around buoys, but that doesn't make them fast. The next pass through on the weave I asked that you use only one finger on the tiller (some might not have heard that request). Great sailors could let go of the tiller and still do the weave. I was hoping you'd figure out that you can't hold a tiller extension with one finger and steer but you could steer with a finger on the actually tiller. It took a little problem solving skills. I was also testing you to see how quickly you might give up on a "stupid drill". That stupid drill took all of 30 seconds to complete but it told me a lot about individual effort. Try as hard as you can and don't give up.
Next we played a little follow the leader as we went downwind and
worked on jibes. When you play follow the leader, the closer you get to the front boat the more difficult the drill is. Let's keep it tight, but don't give it to someone up the rear. Make sure you use your best "racing" jibe when you do this. Don't just turn the boat. For some reason people had an easier time taking their roll tacks more seriously than their roll jibes. That's crazy. Flattening after a roll jibe is much harder and takes more coordination and timing from the skipper and crew. How far does the crew have to come up to help flatten? How hard? How quickly must they get back to leeward to correct over-flattening? How far outboard do they have to get? This drill should be fun. It's a team thing. You're all carving out a pattern on the river together and it looks cool from shore. You look like a team that's got its act together and is working hard.
Next we went into trying to "hold" our position (think starting line, think "stop" of Stop and Go). We need to work on that one. It would have been better if I had a starting line set to give you more of a visual clue. Then we did something weird and crazy and I was so proud of you who really went for it. Who ever heard of backing yourself under a bridge on purpose? With a little practice you could learn to nail this drill without nailing the bridge. When folks did nail it (the bridge) it worked on some problem solving skills again.
Recovering from that drill, we went into a last beat drill. You
weren't too bad setting that up but you should do better. This is great for communication skills and working together as a team. Read the boat positions and set it up quick. Joe rounded second to last and won by a lot on a medium length beat. That should not happen. He just sailed over to right on a medium slant (not headed, not lifted, 45% to the finish line) and got into the line of breeze he saw. He got into it, tacked, and rode a righty over the top of everybody. Why didn't anybody see that? Why did all these boats sail together into a hole? Probably because they were gauging their position based on the boats around them instead of gauging their position on the mark; Watching the boats instead of the spaces between the boats; Eying the jib tell tales instead of eying the wind on the water.
So then we raced. When I set up a small course it allows us to keep boats closer together and facilitate boat handling. It allows us to get more starts in. It gives opportunity for less developed sailors to have a shot at finishing well. The longer the course, the more it favors the faster sailors as they can make a mistake and have time to come back from it. Why a gate at the top? It keeps you on your toes and thinking more. Round to port? To Starboard? "If he goes there I'm going here unless she does.... It makes you plan a bit more and be ready to adapt.
The Panic Box is good drill only if the team is committed to getting in the box right away, staying in the box, and most importantly, adhering to the right of way rules. When you don't get yourself into the box right away or don't play by the rules, you reduce the quality of the drill and hurt your team. It works on boat handling skills in tight quarters, it works on starting in tight spaces. With all the distraction of other boats, it's hard to look upwind and read the breeze so you know where to start. Panic boxes are also good in that they don't delay any time in practice. You have to have a starting sequence anyway, this just gives you more to do.
The drill of going around the outside of the box is a great, simple drill. 3 tacks upwind, reach across with maybe a pivot drill, 3 jibes down, reach across with maybe a load and flatten drill. It's important to tack/gybe well but when you can nail multiply turns smoothly you have yourself a weapon. It's easier to get the multiple gybes down first by learning not to over-steer when bearing off and to bring the tiller back very early. The boat must come out of the jibe very low if you expect to roll right into the next one. And don't dilly-dally on the main throw. Throw it with conviction, like you know you've nailed the right time of the throw. Then carry that conviction into your footwork and hand exchange. Roll, throw, and explode across;
Bang-Bang-Bang; Throw-step-step. Go get some tools and then we'll go use them on the race course.

Sailing rudderless is going to keep happening so keep plugging away at it. So are crew races. To me it looked like the crew races were the most fun of all. I liked the idea of the crew doing the first beat and then the skipper taking over. I did that today because I was afraid a big gust might roll down and some boats might death roll. The last race was nice with the long beat and boats duking it out the whole way. Long beats give everybody the opportunity to figure out the way the wind is phasing because you're sailing upwind for so long. I know it can be a long day but always try to work on something on the way in.
See you Friday!


Long email? Well just think of how long it takes to write it,
especially at 2 in the morning.


Thanks,
Coach