Regatta Debrief Naples Cup - Arthur Blodgett

Great racing at this years Naples Cup, held out in the Gulf of Mexico with a 111 boat Championship fleet. Saturday was picturesque with a 5-8kt breeze from the South-West, while Sunday was cold, rainy, and started breezy from the North, before shifting right and dying (from 15 all the way down to 3 kts!). Several of our top sailors were hurt by an OCS on Saturday, while pretty much the whole team improved Sunday – Garret finished 24^th, Denver 28^th and Joey 29^th. Nevertheless, the results were less than I as a coach was hoping for - less than our sailors are capable of. We still have a tendency to get down during a bad race, and the long 5 leg courses were a test of sailors focus and commitment. Try to set goals for yourself as a sailor for each regatta, both qualitative (I want to outwork my competitors downwind) and quantitative (I want to finish in the top 15), and remind yourself of the individual goal for each race (top10? 20?) and how you plan to get there (it doesn't just happen!) Correct Strategy + Execution + Speed will always net you a good race; execution meaning getting a good start and being patient enough to follow your strategy.

Different conditions bring out different strengths and weaknesses in each sailor. One of the ways I try to be good in all conditions is by re-prioritizing what I will be looking at and focusing on. For example – if it's not shifty, stop looking around for windshifts!! There is certainly a difference between sailing in a big or small fleets, which Stewart Walker notes in his book Positioning; you should always prioritize clear air in a big fleet, covering specific boats in a small one. Instead, i've made the following two tables to factor in the conditions and venue. First a review of some standard definitions:

Strategy: The fastest way around the course in the absence of other boats. The best way to play the shifts and current.

Tactics: How you sail specifically with relation to other boats – to stay out of bad air from boats ahead, and cover/lead

back the boats behind.

Boatspeed: How fast you are relative to your competitors, as a result of technique, sail trim, boat preparation, weight, and

helming. We always want to be as fast as possible, but some conditions put more of a premium on it than others.

For the first table, 5 is most important, 1 is least important. The conditions we had at Naples are highlighted.

Keys to Winning by Breeze Type

Conditions:	Strategy	Tactics	Boatspeed
Light, Steady	3	5	4
Light, Shifty Venue	5	4	3
Medium, Open Venue	2	5	5
Medium, Shifty Venue	5	3	3 (everyone's fast!)
Heavy, Open Venue	3	2	5
Heavy, Shifty Venue	5	1	3

The common thread with these valuations is that speed is critical when there are waves + small shifts, Shifts are key when they are larger. To break these keys into how we might actualize them...

Estimated time spent looking at _____ while racing upwind:

Conditions:	Telltales/Sail	Waves	Windshifts	Other Boats
Light, Steady	83.00%	10.00%	2.00%	5% (remember where they are! Find sustainable lanes!
Light, Shifty Venue	83.00%	1% - just powerboat chop	10.00%	6.00% Clear air? Showing headers or lifts?
Medium, Open Venue	75.00%	15.00% Work on going fast!	2.00%	8.00% Clear Air!!!!
Medium, Shifty Venue	79% Head up when you get lifted!	5.00%	10.00%	6% Crossing?=Cross ½ way Loosing?=Lead back
Heavy, Open Venue	75.00%	17.00%	4.00%	4.00%
Heavy, Shifty Venue	80.00%	8.00%	10.00%	2% don't hit them, other wise, who cares?

Limiting extraneous head/eye movement is a quick and surefire way to improve ones sailing. Looking at the boats behind you upwind is useless and hurts your speed. Any time you look 'back shoulder' your are taking your head too far from the telltales, wind direction, and waves. Like a dog that needs a bigger flea collar, everytime you go outside the cone-of-productive-places-to-be-looking, you are making the wound worse!

Additional Notes from the weekend:

*Starts were a huge pre-requisite to good races. Joey improved immensely, while Michael and John had some issues. Work on both accelerations, and gaining hight without sailing too much to leeward in practice, and get a line sight, wind-shot, read on the current, and do a practice run before every start!

*Several heavier sailors have all mentioned to me their concerns about pointing. Chill out. In anything less than full hiking conditions, you are going to be pointing lower than a lighter boat next to you. By expecting this and committing to foot mode in light wind, you will have better flow on your foils and better overall performance/VMG. Even you sail is cut to not point as high – the deeper sails have a more obtuse entry angle. Tactically, try to set yourself up in wider lanes where there isn't a boat close to leeward. Remember, you are also more experienced and potentially smarter than your competition, embrace the challenge of sailing strategically and tactically well in light airs where you may not be the fastest, and rely on good boathandeling to keep speed out of maneuvers.

*We did a good job as a team with tuning at this regatta. Sprit inflicted creases were absent from the sails, and everyone went to great pains to get enough vang and outhaul at the beginning of Sunday. Always tune to the first leg of the race, regardless of what you think the wind will do. If it lightens, easing the Vang is one of the easiest adjustments you need to make – it opens the leach of the sail for fast twist upwind and downwind.

*The regatta was not judged, and other coaches as well as myself were wondering why sailors weren’t pumping and moving more downwind. Work your boat to the limit of Rule 42 – 1 pump per wave on every wave, aft then forward movement (not an ooch=legal) to accompany each pump!

*Good job by the whole team getting psyched up in the rain and wind Sunday morning. Other coaches had a number of sailors contract “windsickness,” and I was impressed to see our team's trip to New Jersey and individual toughness paying dividends.