29ers at CISA Clinic Racing off Long Beach, CA
Every day we race sailboats we take with us a foundation of experience unique to each one of us. That’s one of the beautiful things about our sport. Sailors race in small boats by themselves, and small boats with other people, or big boats with tons of other people, and sometimes big boats by themselves. They race on odd little lakes as well as massive expanses of freshwater. They sail on the clear blue of the ocean as well as the nasty culs of the sea. Some race against the tidal currents while others dodge airplane jet outflow. When we travel to some of these spectacular and less-than-so locations around the globe we drag along an ever-growing bundle of experiences that we can then apply to whatever situation we happen upon on a given day. No matter where we are, whether it be the home club where we’ve raced hundreds of races over the decades, or a brand new spot we have experience from which we can detect patterns to help match up with reality and react accordingly. Great sailors learn how to apply their experience to a new location. That’s why some sailors can excel no matter the racing venue. They recognize patterns developed from their own experience and meld them to the forces at work in an unfamiliar location. They use rules of thumb and are keenly aware of the changing dynamics that might demand alterations of their approach to the day’s racing.
But how many times have we been to the regatta and had the locals say: “It’s never like this here!” We had those very words come from the mouths of locals in Fremantle at the 2011 ISAF World Championships after four days of less than 12 knots of breeze from all kinds of funny directions. For the years leading into the event the world was preparing for 18-25 knot seabreezes. Even the weeks leading into the regatta were classic Fremantle Doctor days. Then the regatta started and things were somehow not expected. Sailors might have painted themselves into a corner by preparing only for breezy conditions or bringing sails tailored for breeze. If there had been a local fleet of Starboat sailors, they might have been the toughest in the world in 18 knots or more, but would have been brought back to earth by the variance in conditions.
Rule #4 in our list of 50: History can be dangerous.
Sailors are notoriously superstitious. Maybe not in the same way as they used to be. Modern sailboat racing can barely relate with whaling ships and tales of the kraken, but sailors do have their tendencies to rely on those gems of history. We’ve all heard the comments before a day’s racing:
“You always go right in Long Beach”
or
“The left is always better in Fremantle.”
How many times have we said to ourselves:
“Well, the left won the last race, so maybe we’d better head that way this race because it will probably happen again.”
These are dangerous statements. Sailboat racing is a game of too many dynamics to fall into the rut that we should always go right in Long Beach. Sure, over the averages of time since before any of us were born (no matter how old you are), if two boats split to opposite sides of the racecourse in Long Beach, CA, the boat on the right might win 70% of the time. The averages are overwhelmingly in favor of one side over the other when the conditions are just right. But, for every two boats that have won on the right in Long Beach, there has been one that won on the left. Was it just an accident? Should we just blindly stumble off to the right and play the odds that we might win? When it comes to local knowledge and more so when it comes to race-to-race decisions, what just happened in the past should often be forgotten.
Take history with a grain of salt. The decision-making process about what to do in the next race should be fresh. It is important to understand what parts of the previous race are applicable to the next and what parts are not. Has the current changed directions or strength? Will the breeze oscillate? Too often sailors see conditions that existed for 10 minutes and believe that as law for the rest of the day. For the most part I argue against splitting tacks before the first race of the day for that reason. Weather and course conditions are often so variable, they can make information five minutes old obsolete. It is absolutely vital in sailboat racing to be aware of conditions as they are changing and not depend on information from conditions in the past. Recognizing the patterns is critical and then correctly reacting is paramount.
The best sailors in the world are aware of what has happened, but most importantly they are constantly aware of the conditions at present. Each decision made on the racecourse should be an assessment of the conditions and positioning at the moment, aware but not dependent on history. They use their unique experience to recognize the patterns as they see them, even in unfamiliar sailing locations. The reasons why some locations are notoriously favored towards one side or the other are usually reasons that can be deduced from observing the situation. It is more important to know why a location has certain tendencies than it is to know what those tendencies are. If we know why, then we can recognize when the patterns match up and when they don’t. In both cases we can take advantage of the situation and not leave it up to the statistical average. Knowing why it favors the right in Long Beach 70% of the time enables us to still have the advantage when the 30% conditions are present. The phrase in investing strategy that anybody can win when the bull market, but the best can win in a bear market holds true in sailboat racing too. Relying on history can be valuable only up to a point, and then it becomes very dangerous. Understanding why historical data happened and then recognizing the patterns instead of relying on that data will improve our chances to succeed on the racecourse.
