Boat handling

Boat speed. How do you get it? Where does it come from?

We racing sailors can become confused over all the aspects of sailboat racing. Weather forecasting. Boat preparation. Strategy. Tactics. Rules. Psychology. Physical fitness. So many things to think about. So many ways to gain on our opponents. So many ways to screw up.

But deep down we all know that there’s only one skill that really matters. Boat speed. Some people seem to have an innate skill to make a boat go fast. The rest of us are totally mystified as to how they do it.

Do you remember the series of posts I wrote back in early 2006: Dave Dellenbaugh’s Top Ten Tactical Tips? Dave’s first tip was Fast=Smart. Boat speed trumps all. If you have boat speed you will look like a tactical genius.

At the Laser Masters Worlds I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my boat speed upwind in waves was better than about half of the other sailors. At previous Worlds that had not been true. It was the primary reason why I managed to finish in the top half of the fleet (just). Forget all the other stuff, tactics, strategy, mark roundings… You have to be faster than your opposition if you’re going to beat them.

But why was I better than the tailenders this year? And why were the guys at the front of the fleet still significantly faster than me?

When you are learning to sail and beginning to race it’s pretty easy to find the keys to improve your boat speed. It’s in all the books, or the advice that any experienced racer can give you. Sit further forward in light air. Sail flat. Hike hard in heavy air. Simple stuff. You do it and you go faster. Then after a year or two you stop improving. You reach a plateau somewhere in the middle of the fleet. The guys at the front of the fleet are faster, but you can’t see why.

What’s the reason those guys at the front are faster?

Is their equipment better? Maybe. Even in a strict one-design boat like the Laser, perhaps the fast guys have newer stiffer boats, smoother foils, newer sails. Aaahh, yes newer sails. I thought I had discovered the reason for my dismal performance at the Laser North Americans early in the season. I was using an old sail. I bought a new one. My results improved. It could have been the sail. Or perhaps I learned something subconsciously at the NAs that improved my speed. How would I know?

Are those guys at the front really faster? Or are they just better at reading the water, sniffing out the wind, predicting the weather, knowing where the next shift will come from? I think there’s an element of truth in that, especially on flat water, such as on the North Jersey lakes where I sailed for many years. On flat water it seems that the boat speed of the sailors in the top half of a fleet is pretty similar. I once asked one of the best sailors on those lakes what it was that one of the other top sailors had that made him such a consistent winner. “He sees the wind so much better than everyone else,” was the answer.

On the other hand, in waves it’s different. Some people seem to know exactly how to steer upwind to avoid being slowed down by crashing into wave fronts and how to ride the waves downwind faster than mid-fleet duffers like me. You can read how to do it in books. You can even watch it on videos. But that doesn’t mean you can do it like the fast guys. It’s a feel thing. They have it. I don’t.

So how do you get that “go faster” thing? That feel. We touched on one solution a couple of weeks ago in Big Fleets and Small Fleets. Stuart Walker says if you want to improve your boat speed you have to race in big fleets. Because that’s where the fast sailors are.

Downwind at the Worlds in Roses I could hold my own with the other mid-fleet guys. But if one of the sailors normally near the front of the fleet ended up back with us, because of a disastrous start or going the wrong way on the first beat, he would leave us in his wake upwind and downwind. How?

For some years now the conventional wisdom for sailing Lasers upwind in waves has been to work the boat through the waves in a kinetic technique pioneered by Robert Scheidt; and downwind in waves it has been all about sailing “hot” angles, sailing by the lee, S-curving. But wait?

Doug Peckover posting on the Laser forum about the Masters Worlds was watching Mark Bethwaite’s technique…

Why Mark Bethwaite will win: I’ve been watching Mark sail in a breeze and in lighter air today, both upwind and downwind. He is winning on boat speed in a very unusual manner that I have not seen before. Others are throwing their weight around, sheeting out to go around waves, carving downwind, etc. Mark does none of this. He does not move his body or trim the main – he only focuses intently on the waves just in front and makes rapid, minor steering adjustments. That’s it – nothing else. Mark has learned a way to sail Lasers that is faster in all of the conditions we have sailed in so far. Definitely a minimalist approach – very efficient, clean, and fast. Rob seems to be using the same technique and is faster than last year when he came 2nd in Korea. My guess is that they have learned this from Tom Slingsby who is the current open world champ. They all live in Sydney and have been training together.

I take three messages from this post of Doug’s…

• As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

• One way to improve boat speed is to train with people faster than yourself.
• Just when you think you’ve worked out how to go faster, someone else will invent an even better technique.

So what can I do? Will my boat speed improve if I just practice more and race more? Is it all about time on the water? Would coaching help? Once you’ve reached that mid-fleet plateau, can a coach spot what you need to do to go faster? Is boat speed even something you can improve through conscious effort? Can you see a faster sailor doing something different, copy them, and magically start going faster yourself? Or is boat speed something you learn subconsciously…. through the seat of your hiking pants perhaps? Or is lack of boat speed genetic like… premature male baldness? Is there a Rogaine fix for lack of boat speed?

What do you think?

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

“How the hell do you jibe in those conditions?” asks Adam Turinas in a comment to Monday’s post about racing a Laser in over 20 knots.

Hmmm. Somebody is asking me for advice on Laser boat-handling? This guy must be desperate.

But it is true that, although I capsized a couple of times on Saturday, I didn’t capsize at all at the gybe mark while others near me in the fleet did. So, even if am a total klutz at many Lasering skills, maybe I’m not totally hopeless at heavy air gybes. So what can I tell you?

Well, first of all the main way that people capsize a Laser in heavy air when gybing from reach to reach is by screwing up into the wind and broaching after the gybe. So here’s Tillerman’s tips on how to avoid this…

1. Gybe when you’re going fastest. I know this sounds scary and counter-intuitive but it really is easier to gybe when you’re planing or surfing down a wave. At this point there is very little load on the rig so the sail comes across pretty easily.

2. Gybe with confidence. When you decide it’s time to gybe, don’t futz about, just do it. Pull in the sheet a bit, bear away, and as the boat starts to gybe, give the sheet another pull.

3. Keep the boat flat. Forget about trying to roll the boat in the really heavy stuff. As the boom comes across throw your weight across to the new windward side. Remember what I said about most capsizes during gybes in heavy air being caused by screwing up into the wind in heavy air? Well, you don’t want to come out of the gybe with a major heel to leeward as you’ll be heading for Broachville.

4. Do it like Turban. I learned this trick from an instructor named Turban at the Sunsail Watersports Center in Antigua. He was called Turban because he wore a turban. I guess you had to be there…

Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes. Turban’s trick. Turban he say, “Downwind tuck your back leg so that your thigh is over the hiking strap and your calf is under it.” This is actually a very stable position for a heavy air run or broad reach, and if you have your leg like that before the gybe, when you throw body across the boat to the new windward side, your front foot (old back foot) will already be under the hiking strap. So if you need to hike hard to flatten the boat you will avoid the ignominious fate of falling out of the boat backwards because you didn’t have a foot under the strap.

5. Bear away. As soon as the boom crosses the center-line, reverse the tiller and start bearing away on the new tack. Remember your high school physics lessons about angular momentum? No? Well, when you gybed you started the boat, boom and sail all spinning in one direction. If they keep spinning that way you are going to to do one of those screw-up into the wind leeward-heel broach capsize glug-glug-glug maneuvers that I warned you about. So you need to stop that spin by bearing away before it happens. You will end up steering an S-shaped course through the gybe.

OK. That’s two or three hundred words that have exhausted the sum total of all I have learned about heavy air gybes in a quarter of a century of Laser sailing. Some of you reading this must know more, or can tell me if any of the above is utter nonsense. Bring it on.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

JP, the author of Captain JP’s log has been trying out a Laser and has some questions about Laser sailing…

One thing I’ve noticed is not everyone sails the same way: for example during tacking when does the tiller flip from behind the back - before or after? In the lesson we were told tack first then get the tiller on the right side but my nephew flips it over before the tack and says that’s how he was taught.

Not sure if you’re talking here about flipping the tiller extension to the new side, or swapping sheet and tiller hands.

Don’t flip the tiller extension to the new side before the tack. Hold it in the natural position that you have been holding it for beating as you go into the tack.

As for the swap of sheet and tiller extension to the new hands, the way that’s usually taught is to do the hand swap after you have crossed to the new side of the boat. That’s what Ben Ainslie describes in his book. But in Ben Tan’s book, the chapter on tacking shows the hand swap being done behind the back as the sailor crosses the boat. I think I do both in different circumstances. I’ve never heard of anyone swapping tiller and sheet hands before the tack.

Also which method is best for pulling lots of sheet in at once - wrap round knee or tiller? Which do you use or does it vary by circumstance or preference?

Knee? Tiller? Neither. Don’t use your teeth either. (I’ve seen people do that too.)

The way to sheet in is to use both hands. With practice you can grab the sheet near the block with your tiller hand (while still holding the end of the tiller extension). Lift that hand upwards pulling in several feet of sheet (of course while steering straight at the same time). Then grab the sheet near the block with your sheet (front) hand and pull in several more feet. Repeat, alternating each hand. Of course you need a tiller extension long enough to be able to reach to the block without dropping the extension.

Both of these techniques, the hand swap and sheeting in, can be practised on dry land if a student is finding them difficult. When I was teaching kids to sail Optimists (that require exactly the same methods) we always went through these techniques on the land first.

Hope that helps. Any more questions, class?

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

It’s been apparent in the last few regattas that the leaders in the local Laser fleets have much better upwind speed in waves than I do. What am I doing wrong? What do they do differently? I was puzzled.

Then today I saw a reference in Sailing Anarchy to an old article in Sailing World by Ed Adams about Robert Scheidt’s upwind technique in a Laser. Now I’ve been hoarding away Sailing World articles that are relevant to my kind of sailing for years. Let’s see if it’s in my file. Ah yes, here it is: March 1998 Poetry in Motion by Ed Adams.

So let’s see what Mr Ed says…

Shoulder down mode. In the flat water between wave sets, sit up slightly and lean forwards with the forward shoulder down.

Punch the wave. Just as the bow meets the wave, throw the torso aft and out and punch the wave by jabbing the tiller to leeward.

Unweight on the crest. As soon as the wave punch is made, come out of the hard hike, sit up and forward to unweight the boat on the crest of the wave, and pull the tiller up.

Power landing. As the boat drops into the trough, throw the weight aft and out violently and put the tiller back down to leeward.

Hmmm. Well that’s certainly more complicated and athletic than anything I do right now. I’ll have to try it. Just in case, does anyone have a recommendation for a good chiropractor?

By the way, does anyone who really knows about Laser sailing want to comment as to whether this is still the best recommended technique or has someone discovered an even better way in the last seven years?

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

One of the benefits of a group writing project such as our current one on Learning Experiences is that it is an excellent opportunity for writers of less widely known sailing blogs to showcase their…

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Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back