Welcome to this weeks Debrief - quotes
edition! After an intense regatta and journey back, were ready to
hash out the main issues and takeaways from the event, with help from
sage sailors and winners alike. On the truck-ride back, the kids were
exposed to one of the Sage-est of them all, in the form of Michael Blackburn's Sailing Mind Skills – its a great mix of lead
meditation and information from an Olympic Medalist that I encourage
all sailors to utilize. Here we go!
Saturday
“There are good days in racing and bad days in racing, Rickey
Bobby just had himself a bad day.”
-Taledega Nights
“All else being equal, it may just come down to who want's it
more.”
-Terry Hutchinson
“Pain is temporary but memmories will last a lifetime.”
-Michael Blackburn
“Waves are an excuse to use kinnetics”
- Peter Commette
After a late afternoon light air practice on Friday, Saturday morning
greeted us with rain, low temps, and winds gusting to 25kts. The Race
committee Postponed until Noon, when the breeze was down to 15kts,
and we got in 3 quality races.
The waves were short and steep – quite different from the
Ocean, but what we should expect for at least several days of Orange
Bowl and Team Trials – the depth and fetch (distance to the
windward shore) are almost identical for Brant Beach and Biscayne
Bay.
When the breeze is up, wind shadows matter a lot less (the air
takes less distance to resume normal flow after going around an
opponents sail), and it is generally less shifty than light airs.
Therefore, speed is king. A combination of conditioning, effort, and
attitude prevented our sailors from having it. I see these three
factors as related. Possibly because of the cold and rain, our
sailors weren’t sufficiently psyched up to give maximum effort in
hiking and trimming. And while Joey's level of 'wanting it' improved
throughout the day, he was so gassed from hiking in the third race
that he made some bad decisions, lost good technique through waves
(bow kept digging into waves), took several breaks to tweak his sprit
in the middle of the beat, and could barely speak sentences when the
race ended. When you are exhausted, your technique and mental
presence are always the first things to go - Conditioning matters!
You need to be able to sail the entire race (~35 minutes) at maximum
effort, while being calm and cool enough to think clearly. This was
honestly expected – our entire team has trouble getting through a
30 minute workout after sailing all day in moderate wind – if you
want to be able to compete in breeze, you need to take it upon
yourself to get in better shape. We will also be stepping up required
team conditioning in the coming weeks.
Garret solved his issues with hiking by simply trimming less and
going slower. All boats can point higher in more breeze, so trimming
in past the corner is really important. Pinching is slow in waves, so
hiking is critical to not only keep the boat flat but to 'hike the
bow down' – keep the telltales flowing straight back. In our
debrief Saturday, Garret and to a lesser extent Joey and Andrew cited
being lighter than their competitors as an excuse for not being flat
and trimmed in. This is a total fallacy, the top third of the fleet
was not noticeably beefier than our sailors (perhaps they have a self
image of being small from years past in Opti's) and I know plenty of
slightly built like Mitch Hall (at 145 could sail an FJ or even laser
full in anything, now a coach a College of Charleston) who are fast
in Breeze through having great technique and a will to hike harder
than everyone else.
A final comment on speed: there were on the water Judges at this
event, and they tolerated sailors who used substantially more upwind
kinetics than ours. As a sailor, I always want to have the skills to
use 'kinetics' – what Frank Bethwait calls “the practice of
generating extra speed from muscle power...an art form” at a level
consistent with the most aggressive 20% of the fleet, and I
encouraged our sailors to try more body movement on waves upwind. The
critical move is a 'pop' of the shoulders out and back on the wave
crest to put the bow down into the trough (scroll to 1:35 in this clip for illustration). This is permitted by a
liberal interpretation of Rule 42 because “a boat may be rolled to
facilitate steering” and the downslope of a wave requires us to
head off; and because rolling the shoulders back is “adjusting the
trim of the hull.” The added illegal benefit of this movement is
that it does fan the leech of the sail slightly on each wave, but
because the body movement is necessary to steer trough and keep the
boat in contact with waves, its allowed!!
Two things to practice: adjust the timing/frequency/magnitude of
your movements to the size and shape of the waves (bigger waves,
bigger movements; short steep waves=more frequent movements), and try
to copy the fastest and most aggressive sailors in a fleet – you
often need to exaggerate a skill while learning it!
Sunday
“When your preparation and speed is adequate and your strategy
correct, your tactics will be logical and obvious”
-Michael Blackburn
“If your looking back in the fleet, that's where your headed!”
- Ken Legler
“This is why, when very light air returns after a near-calm
period, it will always pay to accelerate by sailing free at first,
and to 'wind-up' to a higher pointing angle only after speed has been
acquired. A boat which is pointing high from the outset can stabilize
at some lower speed and will accelerate no further.”
- Frank Bethwait
Sunday brought medium air, which died throughout the day, then went
hard right for the last race. In addition to the topics from saturday
covered above, our evening debrief had focused on the necessity to
tuning and checking the line more in the time before each race, and
how to get a better start – the sailors did a great job putting
this into practice. More windshots gave the sailors a better idea of
how much the favored end was advantaged by; it it was 5 degrees, then
starting on the other half in clear air was a great play, if it was
10-15deg, then starting in the favored third was important. Joey and
Garret each had a great pin-third start, where they were able to have
a hole to leeward to accelerate, and were on time (but not over with
the I flag in effect) thanks to getting line sights and practicing
accounting for the current (flowing against the wind). Andrew's
starts were not as good, he generally found large packs of boats to
set up in, and was either too late setting up (couldn't get through
to the front row) or too early (had to sail down too much and lost
his hole to leeward). Sat. night we went over how to do a port tack
approach – it can be a great way to have 'fleet vision' and tack
into a more sparse area of the line. In the lighter air, starts
mattered more, as wind shadows project further, and both Joey and
Garret improved their average scores significantly from Saturday to
Sunday.
A couple mistakes: in a race Joey started in the top 3, he began
tacking too much, looking back and trying to cover everybody, then
got out of phase with the moderate wind-shifts and lost 20 boats.
Leading a race should not cause a major physiological change – keep
doing what got you there in the first place – executing a correct
strategy and sailing fast! In the final race, with the wind down to
3-5 kts, all three sailors stalled their sails on several occasions.
Before the race we adjusted the luff ties on the water – tapering
away from the mast at the top to create twist, and added turns to the
Cunningham. But even the perfect sail tie adjustments will be
meaningless if your major controls – the sprit, outhaul, vang, and
mainsheet are wrong! Too much mainsheet trim and trying to point too
much led sailors to be slow for too much of the race (see above Frank
Bethwait quote). In light air, commit to foot-mode until you have
superior speed to your competitors – then you can point!
Overall, this should be a very valuable regatta because it allowed
our sailors to identify some weaknesses in their game. While they may
have top ten potential in 7-12 kts, all of our major upcoming
championships are 3-4 days and you will see a range of conditions!
Work on your weaknesses until you are a complete sailors who can
compete (or at least hang for a day and not tank your regatta) in all
conditions. We'll be practicing on Biscayne Bay the two weekends
prior to Orange Bowl to get used to the wave shapes – but need to
work on physical conditioning and heavy air speed every opportunity
we get!
Some housekeeping:
Its an exciting time of year with ACC's, River Romp and the LYC Team
Race Invite back-to-back-to-back. Ill be sending out
Gold/Silver/Bronze Team Race rosters for the invite by weeks end.
Mack Agnesse is coaching the Romp (im with the Aquinas Team racing in
an invite at Coast Guard Accademy) and ill be back for the Team Race
Invite. Study up on your team race playbook and please email if you
have any questions!
To get you psyched up for team race Boathandeling, here's each sailors tacks on Fridays Practice:
To get you psyched up for team race Boathandeling, here's each sailors tacks on Fridays Practice:
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