CampbellSailing.com

50 Rules to Sail by in 2012 - Weeks 1 & 2

January 9th, 2012 in 50 Rules to Sail by in 2012, General.

I’m going to mix things up a bit this year with the weekly column. If we have classic tactical scenarios from sailing situations I am still going to dissect those as best as possible here, in the meantime I figure 2012 is as good a year as any to start compiling that crucial list of rules to sail by. I’ll do my best to cover the bases from minor to major in no particular order. I guarantee that at some point we’ll all stop and think I’ve broken that rule before and maybe it worked, or maybe it didn’t. Some of the rules might be things we already do. A little reinforcement can go a long way so I hope you stick with me.

My sailing strategy in general is to break down sailboat racing into a series of key decisions for each race. If each decision has multiple choices, then I need to assess and decide which of those choices has the highest percentage of success. At that point, my boat needs to execute the decision as well as possible to assure ourselves the best chance of a good position leading into the next choice in the race. It is easy to get ahead of myself and think Well, if I can just get around this mark inside and then tack on three headers I’ll be in the lead after this next beat. A good plan is only as good as its execution.

Even good plans turn out to be founded on a wrong decision early in the race. It is also important to be able to reassess from any given point on the racecourse and adjust any preconceived notions as to how the race was going. I wrote an article for Sailing World Magazine a couple years ago about “Pressing the Reset Button.” It covered that idea about how sailors need to have a “baseball memory.” Even if you struck out the last time you were up to bat, you need to come up the plate the next time with the intentions of getting a hit. That goes for any decision point in a race: a tack or cross situation, an exit from a leeward mark, or a choice of starting position on the line. At every point we need to at least have the capacity to say to ourselves Is this the high percentage choice at this moment?. This year’s list of 50 Rules to Sail by in 2012 will help us to recognize those important points around every race, and then help us make the highest percentage move at each point.

So lets get to our www.CampbellSailing.com 2012 Rule to Sail by Number 1: Have a plan.

That seems simple enough, before every regatta we have an idea about the conditions that are likely for the event. Is it going to be windy? Will it be light? Will it be hot? Is there going to be a rainy cold front? All of these things go into a plan for a regatta. Just as we get properly dressed for the regatta (to be continued in rule #10), we should assess the conditions on the course before each race starts. Singlehanded sailors get to talk to themselves, but multiperson boats should have a pre-race discussion that starts like this: Do we like the Right or the Left side of the racecourse? Why? Is there current advantage on one side or the other? Is the starting line favored to one side or the other? What worked out last race or last time we sailed in this condition? Is there something to make it different from last time?

Once you’ve had that type of discussion, the plan should be generalized something like this:

We like the breeze on the left. The committee boat is favored, thus the fleet will probably be stacked up there. We’ll try and start to leeward of the group and lead them left. Then we’ll cross them and center up in the final 1/4 of the leg -or- We’ll hammer the left until it’s nailed shut and try and win from that side.

Regardless, openly discussing the plan does a number of things. It allows your teammates to be on the same page as the tactician or skipper. In example above, the crew knows that it is important to hike hard and keep our lane off the starting line. Clean up and minor details are not as important as keeping the boat going fast towards the left. If the plan were to go right, its important for the crew to know there is an early tack coming after the start. I think you can see where this is going.

Just chatting about the maneuver or giving brief overview of the plan makes everybody think quickly about their individual roles in helping execute that plan. Going into a windward mark it is the tactician or skipper’s job to vocalize the plan for how to exit the mark. There are more than a few choices, but here are three: 1 Straight Set. 2 Gybe Set. or 3. Set and looking to match the boat behind. Just stating the plan is often enough to remind all of your teammates that they have a critical job to play on the upcoming move.

That gives us a great segue to Rule Number 2: Be Flexible

Just as much as it is important to have a plan, it is just as important to Be Flexible. How many times have we had the plan discussed above and then made a mistake. We wanted the left, we didn’t have a great start, we got rolled off the line and we’re in bad air. The tactician or skipper has to be able to reassess at the point. Sometimes quick decisions need to be made, but whatever the action don’t keep sailing in bad air just because the plan was to go left. There must be a reason. Isolating the decisions that need to be made can help simplify the situation: 1 We have reasons X, Y, Z why we wanted to go left. 2 Bad air negates X, Y, Z. Conclusion: We need to clear out. Once we complete the clearing maneuver we’re faced with a new set of choices: 1 Should we take a thin lane just to get back left? or 2 Should we continue right until we get a better angle to tack on? I’m a huge proponent of clearing out of a bad situation early. As we’ll see in rule #31, often you have a better set of choices if you clear out early after the start than if you wait in bad air.

Even if we don’t make a mistake we need to be flexible. Lets say we succeeded in getting a good start to leeward of the group, pinched off a few boats to windward and then we see the breeze filling in from the right side of the course. As soon as we see different breeze on the course we need to reassess the decision-making process that put us in the current situation. The information we had before the start may only be 2 minutes old, or less, but still may be useless. See the breeze, assess the fleet, assess the original plan and make sure that the current information negates the old information and change the plan. There are plenty of times to be patient (as we’ll see in Rule #38), but if we estimate that the chances are 75% for the right to win and 25% for the left to win, then we better get moving.

Each mark around the course is a good time to be flexible about your plans to. Sailboat racing is as much freeform as it is scientific. As much as we would like to break it down into recognizable patterns, no race, no situation, no wave is exactly the same. It is important to recognized the situation as matching a pattern we’ve seen before, but just as quickly recognize that it doesn’t match up any more and change the approach.

0 comments.