Charlie Enright on the College Sailing Experience

About Charlie:

Charlie graduated from Brown University in 2008.  He is a four time ICSA All-American, who now works and sails professionally for North Sails® in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.  Visit him and the experts at the Portsmouth North Sails loft to see how they can help you with any of your sail making, sail repair, and other sailing needs.  See what they can do for you today!

Phone: 401.683.7997

Email: charlie.enright@northsails.com 

North Sails Portsmouth Loft on the Web: http://bit.ly/NorthSailsPortsmouth

                                      

North Sails on Facebook: http://bit.ly/NorthSailsUSAFB 

What did you enjoy most about College Sailing?  What did you enjoy least?

What I enjoyed most about college sailing was definitely all of the competition from week to week, and the time I spent on and off the water with my teammates.  At Brown, we had a very deep team and a great coach.  Having those two things made the experience that much more enjoyable for me.

In terms of things I liked least about college sailing, I certainly don’t think it hurts you, but you don’t spend a lot of time working on things like tuning, sail trim, or boat speed.  Everything is much more about kinetics, starting, and positioning your boat effectively on the racecourse.

How would you advise an aspiring high school sailor on selecting their collegiate program, or whether or not they should participate at all?

If you’re on the fence about sailing in college, you should just give it a try.  It really can’t hurt.  When you are making the decision, spend as much time around the teams you are looking at as possible.  Try to get an idea of how you fit in with that group’s atmosphere. 

Another big factor is deciding how much you want to sail or not sail in the starting lineup.  Some people will go to a really strong program and run the risk of not getting any looks, or not getting to go to the big events for at least a couple of years.  Other people want to go to a smaller program and be “the guy”.  They go in with the attitude that they will take some digs early, but will figure it out later.  There is something to be said for each, so it’s something need to decide for yourself.  

What is the biggest thing a high school sailor should be aware of about sailing in college before they make the transition from high school?

Your success or failure as a sailor in college will primarily fall on your time management skills.  It is hard to do everything well.  Our coach used to say that you have to balance sailing, school, and social life, and you can only do two of them well.  If you do all three, your work in all of them will be mediocre at best.  In the end, you will either figure it out or you won’t.  Just try to make the most educated decisions that you can.

How important has college sailing been to developing your career, and helping you become a professional sailor?

When I sail on bigger boats, college sailing has prepared me best for working at the helm or as a tactician.  After the experience in college, it is much easier to look back and get a quick snap shot of the fleet, and know how to put yourself into a more advantageous position on the course.  However, college sailing did not really prepare me for any position on a boat where I was responsible for things like sail trim or boat speed.  Again, I don’t think it hurts, but you have to find the time and opportunities to get that practice elsewhere.  

Following the 2012 Olympic Games, the college sailing system has come under a great deal of criticism in its development of professional and Olympic sailors.  What is your take on college sailing’s role in the system?

First of all, not everyone in college sailing wants to go to the Olympics or make a career out of sailing.  I think 99% of the people participating value their education, more than the sailing itself, and will go off into the “real world”.

  

I think the biggest problem sailors run into is not in the college sailing, but how they spend their off seasons, particularly summer vacation.  People tend to do a lot less sailing then and get summer jobs coaching, relaxing, etc.  The bottom line is that the summer in particular is a great time to explore different kinds of racing, and fill in the deficiencies that college sailing doesn’t really touch on.  Nothing beats time on the water, and people need to start taking advantage of those months you have off.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to future college sailors?

You have to be all in and understand that you will have to make sacrifices.  Succeeding in sailing is about being good at working hard.  Sailing is just a medium for that.   

Charlie Enright

Sam Blouin on Zoning In

Sam Blouin
Age: 23
College: Hobart and William Smith (Geneva, NY)
Career Highlights:
- Finalist - ICSA College Sailor of the Year (2012)
- ICSA All-American (2012)
- ICSA Atlantic Coast Championship – 1st place, A Division (2011)
- Thompson Trophy  – 1st place, A Division (2012)
- Danmark Trophy – 1st place, A Division (2011)
- ICSA Co-ed National Championship – 5th place, A Division (2012)
- ICSA Team Racing Championship – 3rd place (2012)
- ICSA Co-ed National Championship – 2nd place, Team (2011)


I refer to “Zoning In” as the technique used to focus on feeling what a boat needs to achieve the best boat speed possible.  Often times it is easy to get carried away with what is happening around you in the middle of a race instead of paying attention to what is happening inside of your boat.  Remember, your boat is what needs your full attention, and you should not waste any of that attention on your competitors.  When I was coaching junior racing this summer, I told my kids that they need to treat their boat like a girlfriend or boyfriend.  In other words, you have to give it all of your attention.  Otherwise, it may get jealous, and you will have problems.  As silly as it sounds, this is an easy solution to a problem that can affect any of us.  If we focus more on whether or not we are going to win a crossing situation that is 100 seconds away, or if our competition on the other side of the course is getting lifted, then we are not focused on the most important factor in our control: our own boat speed.

In my mind, boat speed is the most important factor at stake at all times.  If I am not paying attention to my boat speed, then I am not moving as fast as possible.  This is a serious problem, as boat speed is always my number one ally on the water.  It gets me out of tough situations, puts me in the front of races, and helps me win regattas.

The technique I use to properly channel my focus toward my boat speed is called “zoning in” (at least that is what I call it).  This technique involves picking out a spot or two on the boat where I can focus my eyes in order to tap into the feel of the boat.  This “feel” I refer to is essentially balancing the flow over the foils with the pressure in the sails. This yields a fast boat with effective height.  When you obtain this feel, the end result is a balanced helm, allowing you to make subtle adjustments to your sail trim and body position in order to stay locked into the narrow groove where you are syncing the pressure on the sails with the pressure on the blades.  In other words, you are matching up your sail trim with the proper amount of heel needed to get the boat driving smoothly through the water.  Typically your boat is sailed flat, or with no more than five degrees of heel to leeward.

 For me to fully “zone in”, I pick a spot on the boat where I can focus my eyes.  This way my body maintains its balance within its position in the boat.  I like to compare this to balancing on a ball or standing on one leg.  If you stare at one spot your body will maintain its balance.  However, if you alter your gaze, you will start to wobble and lose your balance.  When this happens, your body can quickly fall out of touch with the boat’s rhythm as it moves through the water.  When you pick this spot, you should choose a point on the boat or the sails.  Otherwise you may miss the subtle visual changes that occur to the boat’s heel or the sail’s shape and lose some boat speed.  Dinghies are very responsive to subtleties in where you sit or how you trim your sail.  Thus, the most seemingly minor adjustments can make all the difference in terms of speed.

Here are some quick tips on adjusting this technique to different boats:

Singlehanded Boats: When sailing a singlehanded boat, I find that I zone in best by focusing my eyes on the tip of the bow or the bottom half of the sail’s luff.  This way my focus is forward in the boat in case I need to quickly eye the fleet or look for a shift moving down the course.

Doublehanded Boats: When sailing doublehanded or larger boats, I always focus on the leach of the main sail or the upper tell tales on the jib's luff (typically my eyes move occasionally from one to the other).  I also make sure to communicate effectively with my crews regarding fleet management and shifts so that I do not mismanage my strategy or tactics.

By focusing my eyes on these spots in the boat, I eliminate my temptation to look around and get carried away with everything happening around me.  Instead, I focus on the largest factor within my control: making the boat go fast.  This prevents me from nervously eyeing a boat windward or leeward, and losing to them because I was not focused on the basics.  Obviously, it is much easier to do this in a doublehanded boat where you have a second pair of eyes to keep watch on the fleet and the water.  You are always racing the boats around you, but, ultimately, the only boat you can control is your own.  By focusing my eyes on a few spots on the boat I can “zone in” effectively to my own boat and create that extra bit of boat speed that will set me apart from the fleet.

Sam Blouin

The Vang as a Throttle - Shifting Gears Downwind

If you plan to sail 420’s or FJ’s for your high school or college, you will be exposed to a type of sailboat racing unlike any other in the world.  The courses are short, the boats are as even as they’ll ever get, you sail a ton of races, and you have more opportunities to pass boats downwind than you ever have.  Due to the nature and location of these types of races, there are fewer ways to make the boat go faster on its own.  However, there are more opportunities to catch bands of pressure that will slingshot you to the front of the pack.  In order to take full advantage of the puffs, it takes a lot of communication with the person you sail with, and a proper understanding of how to use the vang.

First, it is important to understand the best angle to sail a 420 or FJ at on a wing downwind.  For example, as you let the main sail out on these boats, you will notice that where the boom makes contact with the side stay is far aft of reaching 90 degrees from the centerline of the boat.  Thus, the boat is more effective sailed on a low broad reach angle than it is when it is sailed by the lee.  Additionally, off wind it is important to get the top most batten to the point where it is 90 degrees, or perpendicular, to the centerline of the boat.  This typically will require a looser vang, enabling the leech to spill forward of the boom and allow some flow across the sail when you are going downwind.

While you sail the main at a low broad reach angle, you will naturally have to sail the jib by the lee with the wind entering the jib’s leech and exiting the luff.  When you do this, you can use the jib sheet similarly to the vang.  Pulling down hard on it will close the jib’s leech, while lifting your arm higher will open it.  Steering at your general downwind angle, where the jib is by the lee, you will want to lift up the jib’s clew a little bit with your arm to open up the leech and facilitate flow over the sail.  How high or low you lift the jib’s clew will depend on the depth of your angle and the amount of pressure you are sailing in.  Now, let’s take a closer look at your actual vang.  

It is best to think of your vang as a throttle downwind when you are sailing a 420 or FJ wing on wing.  Imagine that you are sailing on a wing at your typical downwind angle.  As a big puff hits your sails, what happens?  If you haven’t put more vang on as the puff hits, the boat will heel hard to windward for a few instants and will feel out of control.  In really windy conditions, the boat may even flip over.  Whenever this happens to your boat, it is a signal that you are spilling breeze out of your sail.  The end result is lost power and speed.  This is much more obvious when you are sailing next to someone who is adjusting their vang correctly, as they jump further and further ahead of you through each and every puff and lull.

Communication between the crew and skipper is essential for proper execution.  As you sail together downwind, the crew should face aft, looking for new puffs and, directing the skipper toward them.  As a new puff is about to enter the sails, the crew should pull vang on so that the batten remains perpendicular through the duration of the puff, and ease it off again as the breeze rushes past the boat.  If executed correctly, the boat will remain stable with no alteration in its heel when the new breeze hits the sails, and it will surge forward with new power and speed.

Quick Tip 1: If the main is not sailed by the lee, the tell tale on the upper batten will want to move forward and out of sight about 50% of the time, floating backward 50% of the time.

Quick Tip 2: In the rare circumstance that you sail the main by the lee and the jib at a traditional angle to the wind, it is best to ease the vang more than you normally would.  Remember, the leech of the main in this scenario is now the luff of the sail, and the luff and mast are the new leech.  If you are sailing in light air, or need to delve particularly far down by the lee, have the crew lift the boom upward to open the leech of the sail further and create more flow across the sail.  Furthermore, at this angle you can also pull down a little bit on the jibs clew in puffs to avoid spilling the breeze from the jib’s leech.

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Developing a Personal Sailing Fitness Program

As the competition level continues to rise in sailing, and boats continue to get lighter, faster, and more powerful, getting in shape is more important than ever in many popular classes in the sailing community.  Sailors are hiring personal trainers, competing at the CrossFit® Games, and the US Sailing Team even went to train with the Navy Seals before the London Olympics.  The interesting thing about sailing is that there is not really a standard for how people are supposed to train for regattas.  This is mostly because the sport and the people in it are so diverse in their goals, making every sailor’s fitness needs different.  For example, a 420 sailor should not train the same as a keelboat or skiff sailor, a sailor who mostly competes on short courses should not train the same as a sailor who mostly competes on long courses, and a skipper often times should train differently than a crew.  Furthermore, sailors often alter their routine for a specific boat or event.  If you get a chance to look at photos of Ben Ainslie over the scope of his career, you will see a great example of how much a premiere sailing athlete will modify their physical appearance for different boats or regattas.  While your fitness needs will vary depending on what kind of boats you race, your role in the boat, or the type of racing you do, the basics always remain the same.

The two most important muscle groups in ANY sport are legs and core.  Whether you are throwing a ball, swinging a golf club, hitting a tennis ball, throwing a punch, or hiking out on a boat, the majority of power in any of these movements is actually generated from your legs.  Even NASCAR drivers use a considerable amount of core strength as they go through turns.  One of the interesting things about sailing is that these muscles are used in a lot of different ways.  For example, sometimes your movements are static, like hiking or holding the mainsheet in place.   At other times your movements are explosive or repetitive, like when you are roll tacking or sheet-vanging.  Thus, how your workout is structured should depend on the demands placed on you by the boat you sail.  For example, if you do a lot of long courses where you do a lot of hiking, cardio sessions and wall-sits are typically a much higher priority than dead lifts, squats, and bicep curls.  In sailing, there are no right or wrong fitness programs.  A program is simply more or less efficient for achieving your specific goals on the water.

There are a few important factors to consider other than core and legs when setting up your program.  First of all, engaging in a lot of exercises where you utilize PUSHING movements (e.g. Bench Press) will do very little for you in a sport where you typically PULL things in and ease them out.  When you do focus on your upper body, it is important to remember that almost every movement you do in a sailboat is using a significant amount of core strength.  Thus, finding upper body exercises that heavily engage your core simultaneously will better prepare you for the water than those that do not.  Furthermore, compound movements will also have a greater impact on your fitness because they will hit both large and small muscle groups at the same time.  For example, pull ups engage your back, biceps, and core all at once, just like sheet-vanging a 420 in 25 knots.  In contrast, a bicep curl will only focus on one small muscle group, and will not simulate how you actually use your biceps on the water.

While programs will always vary from person to person in the sailing world, any good sailing program will incorporate all of the following:

1.  Cardio – Cardio is essential for training your heart rate.  Making cardio a part of your program will increase endurance and focus during long days of racing.  Furthermore, cardio will make you more effective in breezy conditions where you are constantly sheet-vanging and moving your body to adjust to waves and changes in pressure.

2.  Static Leg Exercises – This includes any exercise that causes your quadriceps to contract in a static position.  This will improve your endurance and overall strength while hiking.

3.  Static Core Exercises –This includes all exercises that contract your core muscles in a static position.  This will strengthen your support muscles while hiking, making it easier to support your upper body in a maximum hiking position.

4.  Repetitive Core Exercises – This includes any exercise that engages your core via repetitions.  This will help you use your upper body in a more effective way while hiking, by making you more able to torque and work through waves.  When performing, this type of exercise, it’s more effective to do sets with high repetitions rather than low repetitions.

5.  Compound Pulling Movements – This is a broad category mostly meant to engage your Back, Biceps, and Shoulders.  A compound movement will work bigger stronger muscles such as your back and shoulders, while also engaging a smaller muscle group like your abdominals.  Purely bodyweight exercises are preferable to using weights.

6.  Static Upper Body Movements – Another broad category that is mostly reserved for Shoulder, Back, and Bicep Muscles.  The exercises all involve contracting the upper body muscles for a long period of time while also engaging your core muscles.

7.  Pure Strength Movements (Legs) – This is the least necessary to a great program, but using higher weights and lower rep. sequences with exercises like squats, dead lifts, power cleans, etc., can add considerable amounts of strength to your legs and core.  Your legs are your largest muscles, so they are also the most effective way to add muscle weight to your body if you need to get into a bigger weight range.  This is for very specific and advanced training routines.  All necessary precautions should be taken before engaging in this kind of training.

Zim Coach’s Top 10 Most Effective Sailing Exercises
1. Hiking Bench (Static Leg, Static Core)
2. Running, Biking, Ergometer (Cardio)
3. Static Squats (Static Leg, Static Core)
4. Static Leg Lifts (Static Core)
5. Full Sit-Ups/Leg Lifts (Repetitive Core) – NOT CRUNCHES
6. Pull-Ups/Chin-Ups(Compound Pulling)
7. Super Mans (Static Upper Body)
8. Static Pull-Ups/Chin-Ups (Static Upper Body)
9. Power Cleans (Pure strength)
10. Front Squats (Pure Strength)

Zim Coach’s 5 Most Overrated Sailing Exercises
1. Bench Press
2. Dumbbell Flies
3. Any pure triceps exercise
4. Shoulder Press
5. Bicep Curls

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Disclaimer: Zim Coach's fitness knowledge and recommendations are made as a professional sailor.  Zim Coach is not a licensed or professional personal trainer.

Taking Your Starts to the Next Level

Whenever coaches talk about starting, the conversation typically covers picking the favored side of the starting line, setting up to get to the favored side of the course, starting with a hole to leeward, and accelerating before the horn.  While all of this information is really important to understand initially, sailors reach a certain point in their development where they need more technical information in order to take their starts to the next level.  In many instances youth sailors from Optis through the upper levels of high school do not learn how to properly execute a start.  The reason for this ranges from not understanding certain concepts, to disparities in competition and bullying, masking poor starting technique.  Eventually this is corrected, sometimes at the highest levels of youth sailing, and certainly at the top Collegiate Regattas, where the races are too short, and the sailing level is too high to for sailors to make an error on the starting line and still succeed.  Let’s take a closer look at the techniques used by the best dinghy sailors in the world.

Forgetting for a second the most basic mistakes someone can make on a starting line such as starting on the wrong side or inches from a leeward boat, one of the most common starting mistakes made by sailors is in their acceleration.  Many sailors are taught at a young age to put their bows inches from the starting line, and to accelerate at five seconds to go.  As the final seconds of the starting sequence tick away, sailors using this technique swing their boats to a reach in order to accelerate, and then turn the boat approximately 45 degrees to windward at the sound of the final horn.

While this technique is easy for sailors to understand, it ultimately does not teach the appropriate lesson for racers who want to excel in the sport.  Sailors like to use this technique because there is a distinct and clear timeline for accelerating, and they know that they are always near the starting line.  However, by accelerating horizontally down the line at full speed for 5 seconds, you are guaranteed to eat up most, if not all, of the leeward hole you have hopefully created prior to the start.  Additionally, sailing in a horizontal position down the line completely exposes the leeward side of your boat, exposing you to leeward boats who can legally force you over the line as they accelerate beneath you.

To make matters worse, if you were fortunate enough to take away a hole from the boat immediately to windward of you, that boat now has a hole to accelerate.  So, even if you get off of the line free, clear, and at full speed, there is now a boat to windward of you that can pin you and keep you from getting to the right side of the course.  This is important to avoid if you get into trouble early and need a way out, or want to cross in an early wind shift.

The second issue with this method is the amount and extent of rudder movement that happens as you accelerate.  With the boat making a large turn at the final horn, it will lose a great deal of speed, and will also slide considerably to leeward, costing you both leverage and speed.

Fortunately, all of these habits are easy to correct.  If you ever watch someone who is really good on the starting line, you will notice that they accelerate from below the line and sail through it already trimmed in on a close hauled course, rather than accelerating horizontally down the line on a reach and turning hard to windward at the horn.  The advantages to this method are that you eat up next to none of your leeward hole, your hole is easier to defend against other boats, and that you will not lose any speed at the sound of the horn.  The issues sailors typically run into in the execution of this method are a combination of not having the ability to accelerate in such a narrow lane, and not knowing where the line is.

Knowing where the line is at any given time is as simple as getting a line sight.  This is a really simple thing to do that will separate you from your competition.  Simply line your boat up with the flag that the Race Committee is using to call the line.  Look down to the pin end of the line, and line the pin end up with a point on land.  This land mark is your line sight.  Remember, because you take your line sight from the center of the boat, you are actually slightly over the line when your boat is lined up with your line sight.  Even though there is a little bit of room for error here, you will have a much better idea of where the line is, and will start counting your distance away from the line at the horn in terms of feet and inches instead of boat lengths.

Fixing your ability to accelerate is a slightly more advanced concept, but with a little bit of practice, it is not difficult to understand and execute.  If you are luffing your boat completely on the line and try to accelerate to a close hauled course in five seconds, not only will you fail to reach full speed, but you will also slide sideways significantly before crossing the line.  By completely stopping with luffed sails and trimming in suddenly, it will take a few moments to generate flow over the sails, and your apparent wind will move aft, pushing you sideways.  To correct this, the best dinghy starters do not actually bring their boats to a complete stop, starting a slow forward movement fifteen to sixty seconds prior to the horn.  Depending on the boat that they sail, these sailors utilize certain techniques that enable them to generate some flow over their sails while moving forward almost imperceptibly until the final few seconds of the countdown.  Keeping even a small amount of flow over the sails keeps your apparent wind more forward, and dramatically cuts down the time it takes to generate complete flow over the sails.  Thus, you will merely have to jam the tiller once or twice till you are at or slightly below close hauled, and can accelerate at full speed through the line without sliding sideways or eating up your hole.

Generating flow over the sails while moving slowly takes practice, but is typically a function of trimming in the sail(s) to a certain extent while keeping the boat very near head to wind.  The sails will typically bubble instead of fully luffing, and the leech will not luff at all.  Here’s a quick guide to the technique for a few of the most popular dinghy classes:

420 – The main should always stay trimmed in on the starting line so that the leech has flow over it while pointed near close hauled.  It is critical that the crew trims the jib just enough so that by either pulling it in one more inch, or by bearing off a degree or two will get the jib to pop full.  Thus, the jib is bubbling instead of luffing and flow is already moving across both sails when you start to bear down to close hauled.

FJ – This is almost identical to the 420.  With a smaller rudder and centerboard, it is even more important to execute properly in the FJ because the boat is much more susceptible to sliding.  You may need to start your acceleration a little earlier to get to full speed.

Optimist – Your main should just bubble enough to keep your boat moving forward slightly.  The leech should stop flapping and have some flow over it prior to acceleration.

Byte CII – The technique is very similar to that of an optimist.  The sail plan is much flatter, so you can get the boat much closer to head to wind while generating flow over the sail and moving forward.  This boat accelerates and reaches full speed with very little effort.

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Pyramid Training

The concept of Pyramid Training is derived from a weightlifting concept where an individual performs multiples sets of lifting weights, starting with low weights and high repetitions, and progressing gradually to higher weights and lower repetitions.  For example, a typical pyramid scheme for weight lifters is performing ten reps, then eight, six, four, two, and finally one.   Each set is performed between periods of rest with increased amounts of weight.  Whether this is a bench press, dead lift, squat, etc., Pyramid Training remains an enduring example of how to build strength, endurance, and definition in the gym.

Applying the Pyramid Training concept towards on the water training sessions can do wonders for sailors looking to build their strength, endurance, and speed, especially in heavy air conditions.  Once the wind picks up to a point where you are hiking, give this drill a try:

1. Hike for FIVE MINUTES as hard as you can; stop and rest
2. Hike for FOUR MINUTES as hard as you can; stop and rest
3. Hike for THREE MINUTES as hard as you can; stop and rest
4. Hike for TWO MINUTES as hard as you can; stop and rest
5. Hike for ONE MINUTE as hard as you can; stop and rest
6. Repeat as desired

The drill helps break down a lot of sailing into smaller, focused sailing repetitions.  This enables individuals to quickly learn something new during each individual piece of the pyramid, and then apply it to the next piece of the pyramid, all the while increasing their overall hiking strength.  Whether you go out to practice by yourself or with a group, the concept of sailing until you can’t anymore when it is blowing 17 knots is often daunting and can seem like a chore.  Furthermore, when you start to get tired and there is no end in sight, you will end up checking out mentally and physically.  This will result in you getting very little if anything at all out of your training session.  By engaging in shorter, defined periods of time where you are hiking, you are both more capable of hiking as hard as you can for the entire period, and more focused on what is happening with your technique, sail trim, and overall speed.

This drill is ideally performed in either single person or small group sailing sessions where you are trying to build physical strength, improve boat speed, maintain focus, or keep a group of sailors together.  Performing this drill at least twice in a training session with a buffer in between pyramids, where you push yourself in a ten or fifteen minute downwind sail, will make sailing a few upwind legs on a long race course seem like a walk in the park.  It will also increase your confidence sailing in heavy air.

Here are a few l tips on how sailors of all levels can get the most out of this type of training:

1.  If you or your students are not yet capable of hiking as hard as possible for a full five minutes, try a mini-pyramid starting at three minutes and working your way down from there.

2.  Remember, this drill is just as much about building boat speed as it is about building strength.  Use the breaks between reps not only for rest, but also to analyze what needs improvement or what you want to try differently on the next piece of the pyramid.

3.  As you continue to improve and get stronger, start by decreasing the amount of rest you take between reps.  As you continue to make the drill more challenging, add additional, longer reps to the pyramid (e.g. start at six minutes and work down from there), or just add more pyramids!

4.  Always try to challenge yourself, and never be afraid of getting better!

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Congratulations Zim Sailors!

The Club 420 Midwinters has come to a close.  Zim Sailing is proud to have four out of its seven charter boats finish in the top 11 of the 75 boat fleet.  This includes the top all-female team, and the top Canadian team which qualified for the ISAF Youth World Championship!  Congratulations sailors!

3rd - Max Simmons/Riley Legault, Norwalk Yacht Club

8th - Kristopher Swanson/Daniel Ron, San Francisco Yacht Club

9th - Allison Surrette/Ali ten Hove (Top All-Female Team)

11th - Jake Megaffin/Alexander Sapp (ISAF Youth World Qualifier/Top Canadian Team)

Improving Your Hiking Technique

As the sailing world moves more and more towards high-performance boats with powerful sail plans, light hulls, and high performance settings, sailors of all ages are often getting into boats where they struggle in heavy air.  As the wind reaches 15+ knots, it is too often that you see someone stretched way out of the boat with their head below the level of the deck, wasting all of their energy contorting their body in every which way.  There are a number of reasons that people struggle in windy conditions.  These often include factors such as body weight, physical strength, depowering techniques, hiking technique, or, as is most often the case, some combination of all four.  Rarely is one’s inability to succeed in the breeze purely a function of weight, as is commonly thought by sailors struggling in the breeze.  Improving one’s hiking technique is the easiest of the factors to correct, and will guarantee improvement in heavy air.  Only after improving your hiking technique will you get the best results out of your fitness, body weight, and depowering techniques.

Imagine a person sitting in a rolling chair next to a wall with his or her feet facing the wall.  Now imagine this person wants to use his or her legs to push off and move as far as possible across the floor in the rolling chair.  It is obvious to everyone that if this person is very close to the wall, they will have a lot of leverage to use their legs to launch off the wall with great speed and distance.  Whereas if the person were to set up at a distance where their toes barely touch the wall, they could only use their ankles and toes to push off, and would not move very far across the floor.

While the above scenario may seem silly, it is an important analogy for understanding efficient hiking technique.  Think back to the person described earlier sailing in 15+ knots.  They are using their lower back to swing their upper body all over the place, their head is often at or below their hips, and after about 30 seconds they are panting, out of breath, and weakly drooping on the rail as the rest of the fleet flies by.  This sailor suffers from not properly adjusting the most commonly overlooked setting on a small sailboat, the hiking strap. 

As the wind builds, many sailors’ first instinct is to loosen their strap.  The thought is usually that, by loosening the strap, they will have the ability to get more leverage over the rail and out of the boat.  While these efforts are valiant, they are ultimately misplaced.  As your hiking strap gets looser, you will put more of the physical labor of hiking on small muscle groups such as your abdomen and lower back, and less on large muscle groups, namely your quadriceps (legs).  As your strap gets tighter, you will have a greater ability to flex your legs between the strap and the rail, applying a greater amount of pressure to the rail and ultimately making your body seem heavier to the boat than it actually is.  In other words, the more physical strength you can apply upward on the strap, the more force is exerted downward through the rail of the boat.  It is important to understand that hiking is a function of both body weight and physical strength, and the more that strength comes from a large muscle group like your legs, the more efficient your hiking will be.

While a tighter strap allows you to hike harder, there are limits to how tight you should set it.  As you continue to set it tighter, eventually your joints will not have the ability to handle the stress that a tight strap causes.  When this happens, you won’t get the most out of your large or small muscle groups.  So, while a tighter strap is better than a looser strap, you will have to play with the strap height until you find out for yourself how tight is too tight.  As a rule, about 65%-70% of your exertion should come from your legs and 30%-35% should come from your core.  Also, when you press your feet harder upward into the strap, it should feel like the back of your legs are pressing downward through the deck.  The reason that hiking pants are such an important tool is because they allow you to feel a certain level of comfort when you are pressing the backs of your legs downward on the rail, and they will make it significantly easier for you to do so.

As a final thought about efficient hiking techniques, hiking is as much about the ability to conserve energy as it is about the ability to exert energy.  When the wind is honking, no one can flex as hard as possible for an entire race.  The top sailors are able to hike with most of the exertion on one leg while letting the other rest.  They will switch between legs often as they start to get tired during a race.  This is a valuable skill that takes a lot of practice and proper conditioning.  Furthermore, people tend to do too much with their upper bodies while hiking.  Depending on the boat you are sailing, you are typically either wasting energy or illegally fanning the leech when you do so.  Upper body movements are important.  However, quality and purposeful movements will help you, whereas just flailing around with no method will just slow you down, tire you out, or draw a flag.  Keep this in mind as you practice and race in heavy air.

See you on the water,

Zim Coach 

@SamuelBBlouin Neutralizing Your Helm

Question: How do I fine-tune my settings or technique to achieve a neutral helm when following a 420 tuning guide?

No matter the boat, whether it is a 420, FJ, Optimist, or something else, the key to neutralizing the helm is aligning the center of effort with the center of resistance.  The center of effort, or draft, is the deepest part of your sail at a given time. The center of resistance is the centerboard, dagger board, keel, etc. 

To understand this visually, think of your 420 fully rigged and upright with the centerboard straight down.  If you were to draw an imaginary vertical line through the boat, the deepest part of the sail should line up with the centerboard to obtain a neutral helm.  As the center of effort falls aft of the center of resistance you will start to experience weather helm, as if someone is trying to pull the tiller away from you. Conversely, as the center of effort moves forward of the center of resistance, you will experience leeward helm. This will feel like the tiller is getting pushed toward you.

In most boats, balancing the helm is a function of Cunningham (In an Opti, this is your Sprit Halyard) and Mast Rake, assuming your other basic settings are set appropriately for the wind conditions.  As the wind’s velocity increases, the draft will move aft, and you will see horizontal wrinkles form across your sail.  In windier conditions, this is a signal that your draft has moved aft of the center of effort.  The easiest solution is to put on more Cunningham, which moves the draft forward to offset the draft’s movement in higher wind speeds. 

Conversely, if you have too much Cunningham on in lighter winds, you will see vertical wrinkles along the luff of your sail. This indicates that the draft is likely too far forward of the center of effort, giving you leeward helm.  A looser Cunningham setting in these conditions will allow the draft to move aft to line up with the center of effort.

In addition, the mast rake may complicate achieving a neutral helm in a boat like a 420 or FJ.  Using a forward rake in light air will give you more power.  Keep in mind, moving the rake too far forward will keep the draft forward of the center of effort, even at the Cunningham’s loosest setting. Raking forward will narrow your slot and give you a more favorable jib lead angle, both favorable in light air. However, the only way to obtain a neutral helm, if you move your rake too far forward, is to angle your centerboard forward; this is not possible in most classes.  Thus, moving your rake further forward than 20’6” on a C420 can actually hurt more than help in lighter air.

As conditions get windy and out of control, raking backward is essential to getting twist at the top of your sail and widening your slot.  The twist will help you spill the top part of the leech of your sail to depower. The extra room in the slot will enable you to ease the main to a greater extent in the puffs, helping you depower or plane without interfering with the sail flow over the jib.  However, as the rake gets more and more extreme, you will not be able to pull on enough Cunningham to neutralize the weather helm.  In the most extreme conditions where you are raking way back (In the C420, this is when your rake is less than 20’), you need to raise your centerboard an inch or two to tilt the center of resistance aft toward the center of effort, neutralizing the helm.

Your settings will vary a great deal depending on crew weight and the wind conditions. Understanding the theory behind how your controls work will let you find out what settings will neutralize the helm on any boat with any crew. I always recommend going out and putting marks all over your mast (see the previous Zim Coach post), so that you know exactly where your personal helmneutralizing settings are in all conditions.

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Setting Your Jib Tension and Mast Rake

     As the Club 420 Midwinters kick off tomorrow in Jensen Beach, FL, some of the country’s best youth sailors will set up on their boats on the lawn and make decisions about setting their mast rake and jib tension.  These settings are essential for overall speed and pointing abilities, and are often overlooked by mid- fleet and back of the pack sailors who either do not fully understand the effects of each setting, or simply do not put forth the effort into getting these settings in the right place.

     Further complicating the jib tension setting is the effect of the mainsheet.  Trimming hard on the mainsheet bends the upper part of the mast, tightening the jib’s luff curve, and flattening out the sail.  Thus, in lighter air and thicker chop, when you are often easing the mainsheet to power up, a looser jib tension is necessary to give some depth and power to the front of the jib.  Many sailors simply pull the jib halyard on as hard as possible and leave it there for the day.  These sailors will experience a combination of lethargy and hobby horsing from their boats as they ease to go through a patch of waves or a lull in the breeze.

     In windy conditions where the boat is raked back and is overpowered, the top skippers are easing the mainsheet often to keep the boat flat, and keep their crews on the wire.  This is particularly effective in a Club 420, as the jib leads are set far to the side, giving the boat a naturally wide slot (the space between the jib and the main) compared to a boat like an FJ.  The issue that many sailors run into in breeze is not having enough jib tension.  As you crack off the main when entering a puff, the mainsail depowers.  However, easing the main takes the bend out of the top of the mast, loosening the jib’s luff curve and powering up the jib.  This prevents you from fully depowering and going your fastest in the big puffs where the best heavy air sailors are making the biggest gains.  So, make sure to tighten your jib tension when you are forced to ease the main consistently to stay flat upwind.  Furthermore, you can also go tighter than normal with your jib tension in flatter water, where you don’t ease off very often to go through lulls or chop.

     Whether it is a 420, FJ, or any other boat that has jib tension and mast rake settings, the top sailors all invest their time and effort into measuring, marking, and knowing exactly what these settings are before races start, and will continue to adjust them on the water as the wind changes throughout the day.  If you want a place in this elite group, you will need to put the effort in too!

Here are a few helpful tips and tricks for setting up your jib tension and mast rake:

1. C 420 Tuning Guide – Jib Tension and Mast Rake: http://bit.ly/TuningGuide

2. When you are on the water, trim your main into where you would normally when sailing upwind.  The leeward side stay should just start to go slack if you pull an inch harder.  Adjust your jib tension accordingly.

3. Install quick pins in your side stay adjusters for easy on the water adjustments to your mast rake.  Use a sail tie to tie the pins to the bracket so you won’t ever lose one in the water.

4. Make marks up and down the side of your mast to measure your rake and jib tension with the jib halyard.  Remember, your jib tension has a large effect on your mast rake and vice versa.  You should typically have four settings four your general mast rake setting, and two or three jib tension settings for each general rake setting.  Use different colored markers on both the mast and pin holes to distinguish the marks on your mast for each rake and jib setting.  You don’t want to get confused when making changes on the water.

Example: Wind Speed (Waves)/ Rake Setting (Jib Tension)
Light (Flat, Choppy, Wavy) – Mark in Red
Medium (Flat, Choppy, Wavy) – Mark in Blue
Heavy (Flat, Choppy, Wavy) – Mark in Black
Honking (Flat, Choppy, Wavy) – Mark in Green

5. Once your tension is set, grab the side stays and rotate them in an upright circular motion.  The circles will be larger or smaller depending on how tight or loose the tension is.  This is a great way to measure your jib tension if you do not have exact measurement tools.

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Zim Presents: Zim Coach

Need help catching waves downwind? Can’t figure out where to set your vang in light air and chop? Are you in desperate need of a drill that will get your sailors on the starting line? Whether you are currently without a coach, you are a coach, or you simply need additional perspective, Zim Coach is here to help! Zim Coach is a free online service provided by the experts at Zim Sailing to aid sailors and coaches of all ages and skill levels with questions they have about sailing and racing. Whether you have a question about tuning your boat, developing a workout routine for the big breeze, honing your tactics, or you simply need a drill for practice, the Zim Sailing team is here to get you the answers. Zim Coach will also tweet training and tuning tips daily to keep you fresh with new ideas on how to keep improving on the water.  Zim Sailing is proud to present Zim Coach starting Friday, February 15th.  

Here is how to use Zim Coach:

1.  Tweet your question to @zimsailing, using the hash tag #zimcoach

2.  Zim’s team of racing experts and coaches will tweet the answer back to you directly or with a link to our blog where we will post replies to the day’s best questions.*

3.  Start improving your skills on the water!  


*Zim will respond to as many questions as possible.  Response to individual questions will depend entirely on the number of tweets received daily.