Most coaches will have at some point traveled to an event as a participant. Being familiar with the process helps immensely. Regatta day prep on and off the course revolves around two main areas of concentration. First, you need to make sure your players are ready for competition, and second you need to make sure you are ready for a long day on the water. Mentioned in Part 1, the more organized you are, you will have fewer headaches and more success.
Coach Preparation
Your day starts anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours before your players are showing up at the venue. This time you need to be getting an idea of the weather, checking out the sailing venue if you have never been there and reviewing any last minute amendments to the sailing instructions. Check your coach boat; make sure you have enough gas and oil, that the engine starts, if you have an inflatable make sure your tubes are pumped up. Boat and engine issues become ten times harder to deal with when you are out on the water.
Other things to check before you start dealing with your players is making sure the trailer is in a good place, getting your cooler situated for the day, radios operational, sunscreen etc. Basically you want to be ready to go on the water before you need to deal with your players and potentially their parents.
Player Preparation
Your players should be showing up anywhere from 1 ½ hours-2 hours before skippers meeting. This time should be spent first getting the boat set up and then a brief regatta day briefing. Boat set up time will vary depending what class you are competing in, Laser and Opti will take significantly less time to set up than C420, i420, 29er, etc.
Allow yourself enough time to comfortably get the boat off the trailer onto the dolly, step the mast and tune the rig. Having the tuning guide on your phone or tablet in iBooks or similar document reading app will expedite your rigging time. iBooks is also a good place to keep sailing instructions and course diagrams.
Once the boat is tuned and rigged to your satisfaction have your players change and get ready for the water. A good practice is to have them changed and their boat in line on the ramp before the skippers meeting. This way they can immediately get in the water and to the race course right at the harbor start. Take any food/water or bags to the coach boat and make sure they have everything they may need in an eight to ten hour day on the water.
Before launching have a brief briefing with all of your players. In this briefing you go over wind and weather, what to expect throughout the day and general trends that they might see. Make sure they have the courses, flags, signals and starts all nailed down. Hopefully you went over all of this in practice and they have seen some of it before. Have a plan for after launch and before the first start. You may tow out to the course, but if you don’t make sure they come find you and warm up before the first race.
Up next, on the water event coaching.
Feeling ready for summer yet? Check back here at the Locker Room for more articles helping you land your dream job and prepare for a summer on the water. As always, email me at tcolvin@sail1design.com with questions, comments, or ideas for articles.
sailing regatta preparation
