By Andrew Kerr
As we know, practice is a critical element in any sport and yet time is seemingly becoming more and more limited as people juggle with the demands of modern life!
Here are some ideas on practice elements & content that can make the most of this limited time. In this article we look at practice sessions both fully crewed, short handed and how evening/ beer can races can be utilized for training as well. For the vast majority of teams there is the need to incorporate a new crew member as very few of us are lucky to have the same team at every event. These practice sessions can help integrate that new crew member into the teams system and subsequently help get the team up to speed in a shorter period of time.
A big thing to key in on is practicing a lot of time and distance work; pick a marker and see how long it takes to accelerate to get there and do this over and over again. This will really help with consistency on the starting line and help avoid the issues of being very early to the line being forced to either run the line, luff, or late and in bad air. The great thing about this acceleration practice is you can do it shorthanded. Even if your team can only practice a couple of these drills or has time to incorporate one element ( a beer can race as a practice for instance) you will see the value both in more consistent sailing and general team comfort level with boat handling. The following are thoughts that might help you maximize your time and effort:
- Practice weekends & after work/ evening sessions (with daylight savings time), or well before the race starts – fully crewed.
- Either set a starting line or find two marks and line them up with an available upwind mark that is less than a quarter mile away.
- Do a 10 minute rolling clock with a practice start at 5 minutes and then a race at zero – race up to the windward mark and then finish downwind by rounding either the RC end to port or the pin end to starboard with a spinnaker take-down and a tactical rounding up to close-hauled.
- Try all sorts of starting approaches increasing your repertoire: port tack approach, starboard tack approach, full speed approach, hang back approach etc. And really work on time and distance and acceleration and holding position.
- Constantly evaluate lay lines to the starting line and to your upwind and downwind mark so that you start to internalize the angles in different conditions.
The more approaches you develop the less predictable you are to your competitors. If another team would like to come out and join in, it would be very beneficial for boat to boat tactics and mark rounding’s and advantageous to both teams. It is more fun too!!
This system gets two starts in a race and also simulated practice with gate marks and leeward mark rounding’s. Some additional team skills to build on are:
- Roll tacking and roll jibing – particularly before the start in light air for max power & speed. Lots of tacks in general, with critique of speed loss & speed build after each one. Take time to really work on the perfect time to release the Jib sheet and steering smoothly through out the turn.
- Simulated late (opportunistic) gate mark selection with the pole down & stored and the chute free flying with the jib up.
- Coming in to the leeward mark on starboard tack and executing a pole down, jibe, chute down and tactical rounding. All types of takedowns and roundings.
- “Thin Building” on the starting line – i.e.: holding position about three lengths off the line, maintaining a good gap to leeward and then accelerating accordingly to top speed.
- If you need to slow down and hold position – try easing the vang to dump the wind off the leech and then re trimming it as the boat gets going. This is particularly effective when it is windy as there is a lot of vang on and even with the mainsail eased out the tight vang will drive the boat side way’s and forward.
- Practice weather mark roundings so that in a breeze you dive down hard and pin out competitors ahead from jibing and in light air you assume the correct angle immediately with the spin trimmer talking pressure on the sheet immediately. Conversely, in light air that you round and stay high enough to maintain pressure on the spinnaker sheet and keep the boat going fast exiting the mark. A good trick is to have the mast person ease the vang an inch or two before the weather mark – this will help the boat bear off more easily and also help the mainsail leech assume the correct shape (top baton parallel to the boom) immediately.
- Practice staying within the lay lines to the starting line and building a team awareness of where the safe starboard tack lay line to the RC and Pin end is.
- A rudderless drill with the team – hold the tiller in the center or tie off and have the team sail the boat with sail trim and weight placement. Try doing a rudderless downwind leg – either hold the tiller in the center or tie it off and do a series of jibes with the spinnaker up. Typically after this drill the skipper will use less rudder on the jibes and the crew will be more in tune with steering the boat with there weight. A great challenge for the team is to see if you can do a start without using the rudder! This exercise is great for team understanding of roll tacking and jibing and helps the trimmers a lot with understanding the dynamics of starts and leeward and windward mark roundings as well as overall boat balance.
- In light to medium air – with a symmetric spinnaker – jibing without the pole numerous times to get the spinnaker rotation perfected, with an A sail – jibing the mainsail before the A sail to keep the spinnaker filled longer.
- On the light air sessions a good one to really go at is reach to reach jibe practice – making sure there is sufficient pressure on the spinnaker to be able to get the spinnaker around the head stay for an A sail – with the crew rolling the boat – or properly rotated on a symmetric sail. A team can never get too good at this! It’s a challenge to keep the spinnaker flying on a light air reach to reach jibe so lots of practice needed. If not enough pressure on the spinnaker – head up and get the pressure before jibing. This is really important, if the team tries to jibe the spinnaker in light air with insufficient pressure on the sheet then it is sure to collapse. A good thing to practice is the dialogue before the jibe – the skipper asking the trimmer how the pressure is and getting a confirmation back on if it is sufficient or not.
- Heeling to weather downwind to rock the shoulder of the spinnaker away from the mainsail and to induce a little lee helm to encourage the boat to bear away in the puffs. Try moving crew members from side to side to balance the helm perfectly and try to encourage the crew to sit as low as possible and to the sides of the boat to dampen the rolling of the boat and to maximize the helms visibility.
- Man over board drill both going upwind and also down wind with the spinnaker up – excellent for seamanship, team awareness and practicing maneuvers.
- A great one to try later on in lighter air is a silent practice – a start, upwind & downwind leg and a leeward mark rounding – this is great for team anticipation skills. The only communication allowed is for safety related reasons. My wife Stephanie tells me this silent practice was an instrumental element of their team (America 3) training for the 1995 America’s Cup.
- Continue the starts and races until the team is tiring out and then head in and debrief by having each team member talk about their position and what they need to improve on for next time. While this debrief session is going on it is good to have a person jotting down notes on a Wet Notes book for future reference.
Ideas for after work during evening session with a skeleton crew (shorthanded):
For this session it’s good to focus on starts, & windward & leeward mark rounding’s with no spinnaker. You could have a shorthanded crew (bare minimum) and this proves to be a great opportunity to do numerous starts with a rolling clock and focusing on time and distance, acceleration speed building and slowing down and holding position. Get in as many in as you can.
For Leeward Mark Roundings:
Try to do as many leeward mark roundings as possible and critique each one practicing all approaches; on port, on starboard, having to jibe & round simultaneously and starboard approach with a jibe drop (Jib up, pole down, jibe, chute down), then the tactical mark rounding. Really work on the jib being perfectly trimmed to every point of sail and the crew moving to leeward in light air and pressing on the leeward rail to help the rounding. On the jibe rounding the tricky element is to perfectly trim the mainsail in a jibe and do a great rounding. Do this repeatedly with no spinnaker. There are big gains to be made by executing this well. This is also a really good opportunity to practice pinching up (or “check luffing”) to use the VMG gained by the leeward mark rounding to translate in to pointing and a resultant clearer lane from the boat who just rounded ahead. Any helm will tell you that it is critical to have everyone hiking super hard out of the rounding so that the team can maintain a high, clear air lane out of the mark. Really work on this and the orchestration of the timing of the spinnaker take down.
Time & Distance:
Now lets try some time & distance work; find a marker and see how long it takes from a slow position to sheet in, accelerate, and reach the marker. Try this over and over again and it will help a lot with time and distance. In my experience coaching, this proves to be invaluable to nailing their starts, particularly early in the season.
Spare weekends (if any!): find a tuning partner for races & regatta’s
Any combo of the above would be valuable practice (sequenced from prior practices) on non race days. For regattas it is very beneficial to get another team ( if available) to be a tuning partner. Go upwind with them for 5 to 10 minutes before the start and fine tune the set up.
If the other team is faster ask yourself why? Check the critical settings: Jib halyard tension, forestay sag, mainsheet tension, jib lead position, jib sheet tension and what “mode” of sailing they are in? (“Point mode”, ‘Fast forward mode”). Once you have made your adjustments go upwind with them again and see how you go with them with the new settings. Now how are you doing?
A great part of practice with your tuning partner will be going upwind on opposite tacks before the start (or in practice) for 5 minutes or more, then tack back and converge to see who crosses first. This will give you an idea of the initial shift and the initial favored side of the course. I have found the above very helpful when traveling to new venues and attempting to counter the advantage of local knowledge going into the event.
Make sure to write it all down and to review and share any onboard camera footage as well as pictures taken of the team sailing.
After each regatta, and race and practice session, record in your Wet Notes book what went well and what needs to be practiced for the next team session. These notes are best recorded right away when everything is fresh during the sail in, at the dock, or at the yacht club after the race. It is quite revealing to review these notes particularly; wind patterns, geographic effects, and the effect a frontal system may have had on the course. This also highlights intuitive tactical moves that worked at the venue!
The tactical mind and the chess game:
On the drive to the event I have found it really good to review these notes and also go over hypothetical tactical and strategic situations with other team members. An example of this would be: “Ok, starboard end of the line is favored by 7 degrees on a long starting line with 50 plus boats. The I flag is in effect and the race course looks even velocity wise. What do you think we should do?” This gets the discussion going, gets people visualizing situations, and gets the team together on almost “scripting” the plays.
Beer can race and have fun!
This is a great opportunity to try some things; starting approaches, jibe drops, etc., that you may employ in the regatta format or for bigger events on your schedule. This is also an excellent time to train a new crew member and integrate them in to your team’s system as well as introduce them to the local fleet. Take the time to teach and coach, and make it fun. Very often new crew members are also potential new owners and fleet members. Over the years I have seen teams take on a new person who really enjoys sailing in the class and then later proceed to buy a boat and participate in the fleet.
A big thing to be aware of is the tendency to want to practice moves the team has already mastered. I have experienced this in the past and it doesn’t help the team grow their skill. To counter this trap, make a note of weaknesses at a prior event, and put them front and center in the session. Focus on the “chinks”, for example: If there is a tendency to get up to the line early and be slow at the start, focus on time and distance and acceleration.
A nice aspect of a post practice session debrief is to have a nice social time as a crew. This makes the whole event more enjoyable for everyone. Making it fun keeps people coming back for more. A good sense of humor keeps it light and everyone looking forward to more sailing! Being part of a team that practices, tunes, and is consistently improving, whether at the local, regional, or national level, is a really enjoyable experience for all involved.
Best of luck in your next regatta!
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