Common Themes From Successful Sailboat Racing Teams To Start Your Season Off Right
As you read this, you are already probably behind the curve in terms of getting ready for next racing season. Like many other sports what you do in the off season is critical to how well you do in the next. No matter what your sailing goals and expectations—getting out for weekday beer can races or winning a world championship—you need planning and preparation if you are going to be successful. At all levels here are some common themes that all happy and successful teams share.
Put your team together
It is all about the team. For professional or quasi-professional programs, it is simple. Find the best players you can afford and pay them. For the rest of us, it is a more subtle game. Of all the best amateur or mixed teams I have sailed on, there is a common denominator: respect and loyalty to the payer of the bills. The best make it easy and are a pleasure to sail with. They take good care of their team. Crew can count on a well-prepared boat with good equipment, good food, travel expenses, nice housing, and maybe even some cool gear.
Start with a team dinner in the off-season or some fun social event to get everyone together with plenty of time to talk about the upcoming season with no pressure. Most importantly, have fun and begin the bonding process. If you have sailed together previously, it is easy, but it is even more worth the effort if you are just starting out. This will also be a chance to get a sense of where you have solid players and where you will need to step up efforts to recruit.
Set realistic goals
It may be as simple as sailing in every Wednesday night race and having fun or as challenging as winning a major championship event. It pays to let the team know what you are after. Finishing in the top three or the top 10 in the season’s events or just not finishing last! These are all realistic and perfectly acceptable goals. If your goal is to win a major distance race, be careful. Putting all your marbles on a longer race with tons of variables, and let’s face it, a significant luck factor, is probably not realistic. How about we do the Mackinac Race or Bermuda Race and sail well? Note that while the gods may have conspired against us, we still won our neighborhood.
Racing schedule
It sounds simple, but one of the most important things you can do in the off season is to get your team the schedule as soon as possible. Make sure it is reasonable. Particularly with mixed teams, you can’t expect people to be available every weekend and Wednesday night of the season. Unless they sail for a living, folks have jobs and families they need to prioritize. On the other hand, letting the team know early is a two-way street. If you commit in March, we are going to count on you unless something extraordinary comes up. It is a great way to measure how serious potential team members are and allows you to plan ahead. Don’t wait until a month before the event to get commitment.
Schedule a practice
At the beginning of the season you need to get the team together and get out for a sail without the pressure of having to go racing, even if you will only sail in evening beer can races. This should be a day or a weekend that cannot be missed by anyone who plans to sail with you. This will be a chance to shake out the kinks and choreograph the ballet of sets, gybes, and douses. It will allow you to work a bit on straight-line speed and see what is going to break.
This is the time to hire a coach. They are worth every dime. Don’t try to steer or play owner and run a practice session. You need to do your job. If you can find a one-design partner or close handicap buddy, even better. A coach boat with marks puts this over the edge! Remember, this practice should be mandatory.
The boat
There are way too many uncontrollable variables in our sport. It is what makes it so frustrating. Boat preparation is something you can control. Start with a diet. For one-design boats this is usually not an issue, but for handicap boats, particularly racer/cruisers, this is cheap speed. You don’t have to buy anything. Just take everything off and put back only what you need to race. Keep your cruising gear separate and put it on just to cruise.
Every dollar you spend on your bottom and foils is a dollar (or many dollars) well spent. There is a whole cottage industry aimed at taking what are ostensibly one-design boats and making them better by fairing, shaping, and smoothing bottom and blades. Can you imagine if you took half this effort on your racer/cruiser?
This is self-serving (as a sailmaker) but no less the truth: there is no substitute for fresh, well-designed sails. No matter what your favorite flavor is, newer is better. That is why at the top end of the sport sail life is measured in hours regardless of how magical the materials and construction type. At a club level, we have to be real in terms of budget implications, but the most successful teams still program in a sail or two a year (assuming they started with a good set). Have your sailmaker onboard for an evaluation sooner rather than later.
Make sure the systems on the boat work. If you can’t get enough mainsheet tension without having a guerrilla pull on it, or if the traveler won’t go up or down easily, you are never going to sail well. Put some thought into what works and what doesn’t. Get some help to ensure that it does.
Upgrade your lines. Smaller diameter, lower stretch lines are better in all respects. Take advantage of modern technology.
Vow to get to the racecourse early
The best teams share another common denominator: they are almost always the first ones off the dock and out to the racecourse. Factor this into your schedule and dock times. I know it is hard on Wednesday nights with everyone dashing from work, but even then, an extra half-hour makes a difference. Sailboat racing is a sport. You just can’t grab a driver, walk up to the tee, and pound out a perfect drive. Or pick up your racquet, step onto the court, and start serving. You have to warm up.
In our sport you need to get to the starting area at least an hour early. This is not a time to kick back. There’s so much to do. Dial in rig tuning and upwind trim settings. Set, gybe, and douse (assuming you have a spinnaker), all in racing mode with the same intensity. Time for sorting out the right outfit was back at the dock. Tacticians need to gather the data that will be needed to make the best guesses on which way to go: compass headings to monitor wind direction, current checks, course checks if marks are in the water, course confirmation. Sail the course in miniature if using government marks to determine which sail to use. Figure out the starting line.
It is a good idea to have a team meeting at the dock or on the way out to go over race details from the circular, rules for the day, weather, current, etc. The whole team should be informed and on the same page so that you are ready to swing into action when you get to the racing area. If you are really on your game, you will even have 10 minutes or so to chill out before the start!
Practice starts
Let’s face it: starting is the hardest part of the game and the one that takes the most practice. Commit this season to spending time in the starting area practicing and doing timed runs. Know how long it takes to get from one end of the line to the other. Know where the lay lines are by practicing a couple of tacks to see where you end up. Make a couple of timed runs at whatever your chosen starting spot is to get a feel for speed, time, and distance. In the pre-start you want to always be sailing as if you were racing.
Have fun
Most of us don’t do this sport for a living, so winning or losing a race is not the end of the world. Keep this in mind, and don’t flip out when things go wrong. They will. Even on professional programs where winning is the only thing, teams that have chemistry do better. Teams that like each other, respect each other, and have their teammates backs win. Don’t get down on each other. That will guarantee poor performance. Remember the old saying, “A bad day out on the water is still better than a good day almost anywhere else.” ~by David Flynn of Quantum Sails
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