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Articles: Perk up your performance.. now! Article by Chris Snow
I am sure if you and your crew follow through on even just a few of these you will see a noticeable improvement in your race results and get more satisfaction from your racing. Good Luck! 1) Commit yourself to getting better---Tom Whidden the president of North Sails and a very successful sailor talks frequently about "committing to the commitment". To get better you need to put the blinders on and get to work….and stick with it….over the long haul. 2) Measure your performance….sounds simple but you won't be able to track your improvement if you don't keep track of it. Start a log book and use it! Remember how you did in that regatta in the Spring of 1999? Bet not. After each event take a minute to log your results and pertinent information about how you sailed in the regatta with items marked for improvement. 3) Get Fast….You can read all the books about tactics you want but the thing that wins sailboat races is boat speed. Good speed will let you use the conservative tactics that work all the time. Make sure your boat is prepared the absolute best and be critical of yourself and your boat. I like to say sailing is a "equipment intensive" sport. Get good gear and keep it in top shape. Learn all you can about what makes your boat go fast. Talk to the top sailors, talk to your sailmaker, boat builder etc. to stay up with the developments in your class. Copy the top boats in the fleet. 4) Keep an open mind. The older we get the more we don't want to hear about different ways of doing things. I find the top sailors are always interested in hearing new, well reasoned opinions on how to make their boats go fast even if they aren't from the top sailors in the fleet. The top of the fleet is often looking at ideas from out side the world of sailing for new ideas on how to improve their performance. I'll never forget the day Dennis Conner walked into our office and told us that he has been doing some investigating and had figured that standard 1 X 19 wire weighed 18% less per foot that the Dyform wire everyone, including himself, was using for their Etchells shrouds. He had figured how much weight aloft this would save and clearly had the idea this would make his boat sail more smoothly in waves. He was, as the management consultants say, "thinking outside the box" .
6) Use the rules as a shield not a sword. The best sailors are very rarely in protests. They know how risky going in the room is. Learn to control your boat, yourself and your emotions and back off in dangerous or risky situations. With good speed you will soon pass the boats you might have gained by putting yourself in a questionable situation. Remember the rule that your chances in the protest room are never better than 50-50. In the ten years I have worked with many time, World Champion Vince Brun I think he has been in only two or three protests and remembers the details of each very clearly!
8) Sail with the same crew. Unless you are sailing a Laser, sailing is a team sport. I would suggest that the crew sticks together, practices and races together all the time will always triumph eventually over the crew made up of "drop in" rock stars. Find a group of people who are willing to commit to a schedule of racing and practice and you have something you can work with. I like to remember watching college sailors at the US Naval Academy go from being non sailors to collegiate All Americans in four years through hard work and a lot of practice! Build a team, support them and stick with them! 9) Practice Optimism. One thing I have noticed about the top sailors in our sport is that they almost never get really bummed out after a day when they did not do well. More often than not they are looking forward to the next day of sailing with excitement and anticipation and they always have a plan on how they will do better the next day. Don't look back except to learn from your mistakes! 10) Remember this is supposed to be fun! Never overlook the fact that being able to sail and race sailboats is something most of the world will never get to experience. I'll never forget sailing in a junior regatta in Marblehead, Massachusetts doing terribly and walking up the steps of the Eastern Yacht Club to a waiting Joe Duplin who was a good friend of my crew at the time. Joe is a former Star World Champion and was at the time the coach at Tufts, one of the best sailing teams in the country. As I started grumbling about how poorly we did, how the wind was so screwed up etc., he stopped me short, looked me straight in the eye and told me to never forget how lucky I was to be able to go sailing that day and that I better start enjoying it. He was definitely right, I went out the next day relaxed a little and as I remember it jumped up in the fleet! Always keep things in perspective. Good luck and good racing!
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As
a sailmaker and salesman at North Sails One Design, I have for the last
ten years been in the enviable position of having as customer's and
friends some of the top one design sailors in the world. Because I am
always trying to improve my own performance, I have tried to take full
advantage of my position to become a better sailor. Many of the thoughts
and ideas I have gleaned while working with these sailors I have put
to use myself and here I would like to pass a few of them along to you.
5)
Focus on the task not the result. Top athletes from all sports use this
technique to fight nervousness. Always focus on the next thing you have
to do in the race…. block out thoughts of how you want to do in
the race and instead focus on the next "task" in the race.
Great books to read on this subject, suggested to me by Chris Carr,
sports psychologist for the US Ski Team, are:
7)
J/24 (J/22, Melges 24…etc.) sailors make a tuning chart for your
boat. The rig tuning of the J/24 is critical to good boat speed. Once
you get out on the water in the wind and waves your tension gauge is
no use to you. Make a chart for your boat, counting the number of turns
it takes to get to each rig setting from "base". This is critical
for being able to adjust your rig for the wind while on the water.
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