Starting Drills (Churchill)

Starting Drills 1


I sent this to another coach and thought you might benefit from it.


Ball Starts-
Ball starts are the essence of starting and if a sailor can not
Nail these they have no business being on the starting line with the big boys.

All you need is one boat, a buoy and a watch.
Set the watch for a one minute start.
The goal is to be full speed, closehauled, at go.
The other key ingredient is repetition. You need throw this at them
often. Doing at least 5-10 starts and doing it more than once every few weeks.

Pick either the bow of the boat or the windward shroud as where the boat has to be at "go". Can you be there at GO? Can you be there at full speed and fully pointing? How hard can this drill be when there are not other boats to challenge you? This is a harder drill than it should be because sailors don't know how to set up for it (the wind changes in strength and direction and sailors aren't consistent with their boatspeed through the water). That's why I love it! Sailors think, oh that's easy, why bother with that. Then they do it and get their ass kicked. Doing this drill is a sure way to give notice to a sailor's inefficiency and put them out there practicing it on their own. Afterall, another great thing about Ball Starts is that you don't need a coach. You know when you nailed one or not.

So how do you set up for a Ball Start? By being consistent in
pre-routing. Specifically, being able to hold a close-reach position 3
boat lengths away from the ball for basically an indefinate period of
time (of course that's actually less than one minute, the length of the
sequence). From this "hold" position you can deal with a directional
shift since if you get headed you can still make the ball and if you get lifted you can adjust with a quick luff so you don't get sent down the line and "overshoot". At three boatlengths, you're close enough to the ball that if the wind dies you can still make it. By sitting in this hold position instead of sailing around in circles like a headless
chicken, you can focus on the wind speed and direction, items that are
very important to developing a sense of timing for the drill. AND
that's what the drill is really all about, getting your TIMING down.
Getting a good feel for you speed through the water depending on the
boat and the wind (and current) conditions. Which reminds me, this
drill is set up differently when current is involved (it's even harder
as you can't "hold" a set-up position three boat lengths away.
Of course once a skipper and crew's timing is down, we throw in
different drills to work on "adaptability" since in reality, you do
start on a line with other boats and are greatly effected by them.

Another version of the ball start is to make a small gate (there are
many forms of gate start drills that can be discussed later but this is
it's basic form). The benefits of the gate is it is much easier for the sailor to visualize the starting line because it is an actual line
(although that line should only be a boatlength long). The benefit of
just a single ball is that I can line them up perpendicular to the wind
(a starting "line" of single balls) so many of the team can do this at
the same time. Then I run them on a continuous sequence of either 1 or
2 minutes depending on the wind conditions and the skill level of the
sailors. In medium breeze I can get my team to do 15 ball starts in
only 15 minutes. After that they all need a moment to recover and then
it's off to other drills.

I have never needed to make a ball start anymore difficult than
It already is. But that's easy to do. You can try it blindfolded which is often futile because the communication skills of the crew are often not good enough to direct the skipper. Nonetheless, I do throw that at them ocassionally (but not when there are lots of balls close together). If the wind is steady, rudderless ball starts are really not that hard in my mind but that's because I have lots of control even without my rudder (through years of practice and my need to "show off" those skills).
Yet I have had difficulty getting even my best sailors to
perfect this skill because it takes a full commitment. The ones that
do, have done so because they believed it was a worthwhile endeavor and
have spent much time practicing it. I tell my kids that if you can sail rudderless around the race course, if you can do a ball start
rudderless, you can never by an All-American. Surely a lie, but they
understand my meaning, if you want to be really good, you need develop
really good skills. Whether All-American status is achieved or not,
those sailors will remaind very skillful, and there's joy, pride and
confidence in that. It is often the confidence in such high tech
sailing skills that bring the confidence in other matters on the race
course.


Other variations (though I won't go into all the reasons):

-Two boats fighting for same ball
-Crews skippering
-Skippers holding main and jib
-Crew calls "trim-in" time
-Sailing backwards approach from upwind
-Crews blindfolded
-Coach calls "trim in" time
-Full speed at 10 seconds -no matter what
-Keep Away (two boats preventing another from getting a good ball start)
-Around the Horn
(detailed explaination needed but it involves making a full circle
around the bouy before the "start" but the bow is always facing upwind.
Huh)
-Freeze Frame (holding position with bow no less than 6 feet from
bouy. In less than 6 knots, I've got sailors that can hold this
forever)
-Pivot drill
-Parking skills (four directions- more elaborate than any "stop and
go". Involves use of centerboard; extreme weight placement; main for
backwind or "power over-trimmed" and likewise for jib. Excellent for
skills leading into another great starting drill "Drop and Duck
Hopscotch".