When Team One Newport started in January of 1985, it launched one of the first College Sailing Discount programs. Team One Newport’s founder, Martha Parker, had raced in college on Bucknell’s club sport team and knew first-hand what gear was necessary for college sailing as well as how expensive this gear was. So she initiated the College Sailing Program through Team One Newport.
The program started with group orders of the classic Henri-Lloyd blue One Piece suit, some Patagonia fleece items, sailing gloves (which weren’t nearly as good as they are now) and Aigle boots. If you are reading this article and owned ANY of these products; you definitely appreciate the vast selection of sailing gear for college and high school sailors now! The program at Team One Newport has developed so that individual sailors can now purchase a wide variety of gear at a discounted price, whether in-store, online, or by phone. Their names are checked against current rosters on the ISSA and ICSA websites.
How to Layer
Team One Newport will open its store at special times or even travel to some teams that might need to view and learn what products are available for dinghy sailing. We teach you how to layer under your dry suit for maximum comfort. You want to be sure to ALWAYS wear a technical layer (polyester) against your skin. Polyester will help move any vapor (perspiration) from your skin, leaving your body dry and allowing it to maintain its thermal condition. Your second layer should be a technical fleece that will continue to move the vapor outward, while providing insulation. And of course, it is optimal to have a breathing outer layer (dry suit or foul weather gear) so that the vapor continues to move to the atmosphere.
Why is it important to have the proper clothing and gear to sail and race in? If you are warm and dry, then you are comfortable and can focus on your sailing and concentrate on the tasks at hand rather than putting your energy towards being warm. Staying warm is also a safety concern; Getting frostbite or hypothermia is NOT fun and we want to help you avoid those risky situations.
Team Uniforms
Team One Newport has developed into a premier team uniform company and is constantly looking for new methods of decoration. We were one of the first sailing companies to utilize dye sublimation where we can infuse a logo or photo into the polyester fibers of a technical garment. We are also working with some companies to develop methods of decoration on foul weather gear and other technical jacket fabrics.
Visit www.team1newport.com/scholastic for more information about Team One Newport’s Scholastic Discount Program. You can also call us at 401-847-4327.
Blog
Sail Tuning with Andrew Kerr: Time to Power Up
By Andrew Kerr, North U. Coach, & guest writer for Airwaves
Your team is sailing upwind and all is well , good speed and height on the boats around you , suddenly the boats stands up and the speed drops quickly as does the ability to point – “ net loss to the boat to weather “ announces the performance evaluator on the rail – what has happened ? The boat has sailed into a lull and the team has been slow in anticipating the necessary sail trim and weight changes that are required to keep the boat going fast despite the drop in the wind.
Some of the most challenging days a team faces going upwind are those days when it is consistently puff on, followed by a lull , puff on – nonstop transitional sailing .
What I have noticed with observing teams is that generally they do a good job working with puffs – hiking harder and making the necessary steering and sail trim adjustments – but in lulls a lot of teams lose a lot of performance before they get the boat going again and there is a big opportunity for gains to be had by really systematically hitting on all cylinders when the wind speed drops.
Team Goal:
To be faster than all the other boats in the fleet at powering the boat up in the lulls so that we net gain on them every time the wind drops for any period of time.
An additional goal would be to never heel to windward when going upwind which will detach the foils and cause the boat to bear off with lee helm tendency, by anticipating the lulls we will help avoid this, we will look at this in more detail later.
Anticipate – call the Lulls!
Like almost anything we do in life it is generally better to anticipate rather than react to something, in this instance we need our wind caller articulating the lull in the wind l that is coming – “big light spot coming – here it comes in 3, 2, 1 -now – last for 8 lengths “is great communication, if the light spot continues longer than anticipated then the wind caller adds “Light spot continues for another 4 lengths followed by a slow build “.
If you are developing a wind caller on your team look to really cultivate there observational and communication skills and encourage them to keep taking “at bats “with it even though they may initially be off a little, it will keep the whole team focused.
Look to stress to them the importance of calling the lulls as much as the puffs so that we keep our performance as consistent as possible and for the needs of the trimmers and Helm to be keyed in to this consistent communication.
What adjustments need to be made and in what order to get the boat speed back?
I wanted to pose this question as it does vary from boat to boat depending on the accessibility and fluidity of the sail controls and different boat set ups.
Each team should look at their set up and formulate an immediate response check list and then longer term response check list which we will look at.
Nature of the Lull – short lived or quite long?
Also what affects the response by the team will be the nature of the lull – a short one for a Boat length or two or a longer more sustained one.
Short lived Lull:
In the short lived lull the team will look to ease the backstay quickly for power ( if possible) & the Mainsheet and Genoa/ Jib sheet to prevent them stalling and to go into first gear mode , pull the Main traveler up if it was down some.
If possible they will also ease the vang if it was on hard so that the bottom part of the mainsail can power up, if it was on moderately then we look to check it to make sure it is not too tight – a good trick is to actually lean in and touch the vang to see the loading .
Sustained Lull:
If the communication is that the lull is longer then we need to add to the above check list – ease vang , review Jib/ Genoa Halyard as it may be too tight and possibly ease the outhaul depending on how much was put on prior.
At the recent Key West Race week I was sailing on a J80 (J80 Midwinter Championships) and with a lot of transitional sailing upwind we found it critical in the lulls to ease the vang quickly to power up, to this end we had a crew member with the tail of the vang close to hand on the rail so they could play it.
Typically when the wind is transitioning up and down a lot and the backstay has to be played nonstop then we leave the Mainsail Cunningham loose.
Certainly if it was on and the boat hits a lull it is eased and left eased until the backstay is put on for a consistent amount of time in which case it may be applied if deemed necessary, If in doubt leave it off .
Know where the controls are without looking for them:
A great practice is to sit in the sailing position and play the controls with your eyes closed to train yourself to know where they are with the goal of not looking down at them which takes away from your sailing.
Coordinate the lean in’s and out’s on the Rail and practice them:
In tandem with the wind callers calls – take time to figure out with your team who leans in and who stays hiked on the rail and practice it.
In a slight decrease it may just need one or two bodies leaning in – determine who that is and designate a caller (could be the helm or tactician or a trimmer) to verbalize it.
In a big light spot we may need everyone to lean in and also weight to leeward – pre determine who that is and in what order– very often on bigger boats it is the people with the easiest paths to the leeward side – “John and Molly to leeward “would be a sample communication.
Like a lot of teams there is the challenge of incorporating some new crew in for the weekend, take time in your pre-race practice to go over with them when they lean in and when they move to leeward in a lull and to stay tuned to the wind caller.
Constant angle of heel:
The mantra here is for the team to maintain a consistent heel – not heeling to leeward and then heeling to windward, when coaching teams from a chase boat I pay particular notice and video the top of their mast to see how consistent it is, a common theme is the faster boats have a more consistent heel angle, strive for this as a team in all conditions.
Conclusion:
Our pre-race practice, great wind caller and team effort give us a net gain on all boats around us in a lull and you hear “net gain us “from the crew. May every lull be a net gain for your team!
About Andrew Kerr: Andrew Kerr was born in Plymouth, Devon, England and graduated from the London School of Economics with a bachelor’s degree in Government and politics.
He is a resident of Olympia, Washington and his wife Stephanie, a former America’s cup sailor with the America 3 team, has a Doctorate from the University of Idaho in Sports Pedagogy. They have two children- Liam and Kellen and enjoy family sailing on their Santana 20 and Laser’s.
A full time coach, seminar speaker & North U instructor, Andrew has given seminars all over the world for a wide variety of groups, classes and yacht clubs.
2014 Sail1Design Coach of the Year: Chris Dold
Sail1Design is proud to announce this year’s recipient of our Coach of the Year Award, CHRIS DOLD. We choose from reader nominations, and while we had many great submissions, Chris’s stood out. Below is part of the note sent in by Chris’s nominator:
“My nomination for coach of the year is Chris Dold. Chris is currently the High Performance Team Laser coach at the Lauderdale Yacht Club. Chris is a five-time Canadian Sailing National Team member and although he plans to campaign for the 2016 Olympics his passion is clearly for his youth sailors and they continue to be his primary focus. Sailors have traveled to Florida from New York, Chicago, Texas, and California to train with Chris and be part of his team. The popularity of his program has caused it to expand into two race teams with an added after-school skill building clinic for beginner and intermediate sailors. Chris is special because of his devotion to developing character in young people both on the water and off. In addition to teaching sailing he helps them with fitness, diet, and time management.
The kids really work hard for Chris because they realize he knows what it takes to become a champion. His current team of junior sailors includes the U.S. Laser National Champion and the Junior Women’s Single-handed National Champion. He videos all the training sessions on the ocean and goes to the gym to workout with them. He communicates with his sailors almost daily on his team FB page and sends them video’s to watch about mental training and reads all of their regatta reports. He is tough and demanding of his sailors on and off the water. Missing a practice for late homework or last minute studying is not an acceptable absence. I have also seen him send sailors home when they show up with less than total commitment. He also expects each team member to support their fellow teammate. He believes sailing is a team sport, not an individual sport. “
We are delighted to present Chris with this award, especially since he not only inspires others, but he himself still pursues his own competitive sailing.
Chris has his own website, you can learn more about him here: http://www.doldsailing.com/
Last years winner was Steven Hunt. To read his nomination letter and learn more about him, go here: http://www.sail1design.com/s1d-coach-of-the-year-steve-hunt
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All good coaches, regardless of their chosen sport, share some important fundamental qualities that transcend technical knowledge, or specific x’s & o’s. In other words, whether it’s a basketball, tennis, hockey, football, chess, or sailing coach, there are certain key characteristics to good coaching, and none of these really requires technical knowledge of the sport they are in.
Here are some of those characteristics: logistics, organization, energy, leadership, passion, creativity, patience, dedication, motivational skill, humility.
I would bet that you could take a good coach, put him or her in a new sport, and that coach would find some success. Think about the best coach you ever had, and visualize that person in another sport, and you might see just how that person could adapt and still be a difference-maker.
However, we all know that great coaches not only possess these core qualities, but indeed they are also masters of the subtleties, rules, and technical chess moves of the sport they are involved in. Very often, great coaches are former players themselves, and often they are good, but not necessarily great players. In any event, it seems virtually certain that actually having been in the arena at some level, having been a true game player, is a necessary ingredient for a great coach.
So then, what an important advantage sailing coaches have, since the sport allows lifelong top-level competitive opportunities. While it would be impossible for a middle-aged football coach to live, first-hand, what his players go through on the gridiron, middle-aged sailors and coaches can stay current, and can compete right alongside the world’s best sailors, and even win world championships in sailing. Opportunities exist in team racing, match racing, and all types of one-design classes offer regattas, year-round. In this manner, sailing coaches have the ability to get inside the sport, at the highest levels, learn more, and feel the same things that their players go through out on the race course. The empathy gained here is a very powerful tool that great coaches employ when coaching.
Getting into the rhythm of a sailboat race, realizing first-hand the excitement and frustrations of the sport, preparing mentally for each race, “knowing when to tack”, these are all things that coaches must be able to talk to their players about, and talking to them about these things is so much more clear and present when done by someone who is actually good at them, and has done them recently at a high level.
For example, it was always easy for me to say to a team, “make sure when you are in FJ’s at the starting line to allow yourself more leeward room to accelerate since the foils are small and the boats need to go bow down first before they start lifting.” It was really easy to say. It was quite another thing to actually do it, and to go out on the starting line, in FJ’s, and practice what I preached. That was a LOT harder, and I drew a great deal of empathy with my players from that situation and recognized better ways to talk about it and to talk them through it, having been there myself. This is especially true in team racing, where coaches can see plays easily on the coach boat or on the drawing board, but it’s one thing to talk about a mark trap at Mark 1; it’s another thing altogether to go out and be able to execute it. Without being, or having been, in the arena, sailing advice and technical coaching can be somewhat hollow compared to other sailing coaches who know it first-hand and live what they coach.
So, when you look to your coaches for advice or to get to that next level, or if you are a interested in sailing in a college program, take a moment and check out the coaches resumes, just as they will most assuredly be checking yours. The list that makes coaches good coaches should be there for sure, but see if the coaches list how, or if, they stay current in their profession and have the passion to go out on the racecourse themselves. Great coaches usually always have a story, and very recent one, of a lesson learned at a regatta they sailed in themselves. They love to sail and get better, if only to become a better sailor and coach.
While there is a short list of coaches who choose to (and can) do it all, many top collegiate programs now share these coaching qualities by hiring an assistant or co-head coach, who is very often a recent college sailing alumnus and is active in dinghy racing and brings that empathy, right away, to the team. The head coach then ties everything together with experience, maturity, management, and knowledge of the game.
If you’ve ever noticed, baseball coaches actually suit up for games even though they certainly won’t be playing. This historically comes from the old “player-coach” model, and perhaps, this connects them with the game and the player more intimately. Sailing offers the unique ability for all ages to compete at the highest levels of the sport, and great sailing coaches take advantage of this, “suiting up” themselves and making themselves better at coaching by sailing competitively.
Sail1Designer of the Month: Lilli Salvesen
The 420 Midwinter Championship is arguably the most competitive 420 regatta on the circuit. Each year, teams from all over the country make their way to Jenson Beach, Florida over President’s Day weekend to battle it out. This is a particularly challenging event for teams from the north who have not been training on a consistent schedule. This year there were 92 teams at the championship. The Annapolis Yacht Club team of Nick Floyd and crew Lilli Salvesen found themselves on the podium in second place at the end of the tough three day event. Lilli was the top placing female and is our Sail1Designer of the Month. Congrats Lilli and Nick! Here is a brief interview with Lilli.
S1D: Where did you grow up sailing?
LS: I grew up sailing in Annapolis, Maryland. I have sailed out of Annapolis Yacht Club the entire time.
S1D: Who are your sailing role models?
LS: My sailing role model would probably be my high school coach Alana O’Rilley. I had to learn to skipper 420’s this fall so I could be the third skipper for the Annapolis High School team, and she has been encouraging me to keep skippering the entire time.
S1D: What is your training regimen like, how did you prepare for Midwinter’s since it is wintertime in Annapolis?
LS: I have a couple friends that like to frostbite on big boats, and a couple of my more extreme friends like to frostbite lasers, but I hate sailing in the cold so I stick to working out with Harry Legum at Annapolis Sailing Fitness.
S1D: How did you and Nick start sailing together?
LS: Nick asked me to sail with him for Orange Bowl. I was very excited for an opportunity to sail with someone new.
S1D: What came together at midwinter’s to get you guys on the podium?
LS: The great thing about sailing with Nick is that even though we are both short tempered we are quick to forget. If there was an incident on the water while we were sailing, by the time we had crossed the finish line we had forgotten what had made us angry. It also helped that we both know a lot about tactics. My goal as a crew is to never stop talking. If I see anything on the race course and I mean anything, I tell my skipper about it. This communication is very important because it allows nick to have a mental image of the race course in his head. This is a lot more information than most skippers have that enables nick to focus on boat speed and have more faith in the tactical advice that I give him during the race.
S1D: How did you and Nick prepare for each day of racing?
LS: A lot of sailors have a strict pre race routine, but Nick and I always felt better when we were more relaxed pre race. We would go out on the water adjust our settings according to the conditions. Then go upwind with one of our friends to make sure we felt fast. We would go find Alana and see what trends she was seeing on the water. After that we would wait in a spot where we could look upwind and joke around until the race committee went into sequence. Then we would check our upwind angle by rounding the race committee boat and start the race.
S1D: What are your goals for the upcoming sailing season?
LS: I am going off to college next year so I have to coach sailing so I will have spending money while I’m at school. I am planning on sailing youth champs with Nick. After our results at Midwinters, my goal is to win Youth Champs. There has also been discussion in the family about me skippering for my little brother, Nicholas Salvesen at the North Americans regatta at Brant Beach Yacht Club. He is 13 years old and just moving up from Optis. So I am excited for a chance to teach him how to crew. Hopefully there won’t be too much fighting!
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A Sailor's Response to the Rules that Apply to Them; 2014 Season
Sail1Design welcomes your thoughts in our forum at the bottom of this article. Enjoy.
Earlier this winter, coaches from all over ICSA met in Utah to discuss the new year of college sailing. What resulted was a number of changes in the rules and regulations that apply to all the teams and events within ICSA, and it seems this year was the year of rather progressive and drastic changes. It is clear by the tenor of some of these changes that college sailing seems to be going the route of the NCAA, with stricter time restraints and even rules regarding sailor eligibility. This shift is admittedly extremely gradual, and will inevitably have its perks and downsides, but the most important thing for this season is adjusting to the rules that will apply right now. This article, therefore, is a response from me and others involved in college sailing to the most dramatic changes in the 2014 seasons.
The rule change that stood out to me the most at first is the new policy in which there will be a 10-race limit per day in college regattas. This means that after both divisions have sailed 10 races, no more races may be sailed on Saturday. By nature Sundays often have much fewer races because of the “no sail after” time, which is now 3 pm for most events. At first, this new rule seems like a bit of a hindrance. After all, the ultimate goal of any regatta is to get as many races as there are teams, because the more races there are the fairer the results become. But, upon further consideration, I think that this rule will provide a lot of benefits to sailors in certain venues. Everyone has sailed that regatta: 2 fleets of boats so breaks are minimized, or maybe even rotations on the water so you never get a break. When they do bring you in for “lunch”, you have just about enough time to viciously struggle out of your dry-suit and dash to the bathroom before they are calling for your division to get back on the water, where you will likely keep sailing until after sunset. These regattas, while noteworthy because they usually accomplish the desired number of races, often leave the sailors fatigued and dazed beyond recall. Your coach will ask you about an instance in the race and you find yourself drawing a blank because the entire day has blended into an endless loop of a W-4. With a 10- race limit, timing becomes more relaxed. If the sailors need a 30-minute break for lunch because the conditions are particularly brutal, they can take it because the race committee is only trying for 10 races, not 16. Also, this rule means that Saturdays will likely end earlier, giving college sailors (who are also college students) time to unwind and do work before they have to get up in the morning and sail all day again. This is particularly important for venues like Navy, which hold big inter-conference regattas that require most teams to travel far from home by van or even plane. These events absorb entire weekends, so having the spare time that the race limit can provide to do even a few regular student things will be of the upmost value.
The theme of some other proposed rules was increasing the safety precautions for the sailors. Concussions within college sailing have been increasing steadily over the years, and understandably so with a big pole made of metal hovering a couple of inches over your head whenever you are in a boat. One proposed solution was making helmets mandatory for all sailors; but this did not pass. The cost per school would be very high, and it did not seem like the most reasonable solution to the voters (and, more likely, all of the sailors who refused to wear helmets.) Some more experimental methods have been proposed, and have started to be tested. For example, Fran Charles (head coach at MIT) has proposed that all booms be made of carbon fiber, so as to reduce the weight of the boom and therefore the risk of serious head injury. All of the FJ’s at MIT already have carbon fiber booms, and they seem to sail as well as the normal collegiate FJ’s. The only difference is that they do not have a track to feed the foot of the sail through, and so a clew strap is necessary. These often break, and so present a sort of nuisance to the sailors right now, but if this flaw gets perfected I think that the carbon fiber booms are an excellent solution to the safety problem. Harvard has gone another route; two of the boats in their fleet of FJ’s have booms that are about 6 inches taller than normal. The masts are also longer, so there is no change in the sail area, but this is still the more controversial method because it may have a more influential change in the way the boats sail. 8 other schools are following suit with this, and have been approved for use for these new masts. Only testing of the two methods over the season will tell which is more effective.
Overall, it seems that the committee is trying to change the dynamics of college sailing to better fit the health of the athletes that compete in it. “At the NEISA annual meeting it was encouraging to see how healthy the conference is,” says Peter Bailey, Brown University Junior and Undergraduate Vice President of NEISA, “the leaders are taking steps to make college sailing more safe and competitive.” The more the rules change to be mindful of the sailors, the more that college sailing will start drifting towards the standards of the NCAA. I think I speak for all of us when I say it will be extremely interesting to see how the sport will develop in the near future.
Here’s a LINK to the official ICSA Procedural Rules
