Building Better Sailors: Races With a Twist

When you’re coaching, running races is always part of the agenda at some point during your program.  Unfortunately, unless you consistently have at least ten or fifteen boats at your practices, it is hard to keep races interesting and tactical.  Races with small groups of boats tend to get spread out, and the final result is almost completely determined by boat speed.  Starts, tactics, and boat handling are all still part of the deal, but none are pronounced in ways that will challenge sailors enough to take these skills to the next level.  Young sailors in particular are more reticent to do things that are comfortable in traditional races, as the outcome of a race is not determined by a bad tack, a poor mark rounding, or starting at the favored end.  To make races more exciting, interesting, and effective, present simple and unique twists in races that force sailors to utilize more diverse skills in order to win the race.  Speed will still play a large role in races, but you will have started on the road to building a stronger and more technically diverse group of sailors.

There are many fun scenarios that will make races more fun, interesting, and effective in your race program.  For example, the most common twist coaches add to races is putting a small gate in the middle of the upwind leg.  This gets sailors, who will typically sail hard and fast to a corner, to engage other boats in a way that they typically would not.  It also gets sailors to make tactical decisions much more early, making them more comfortable sailing near other boats, as opposed to separating from the group before making any real tactical decisions.  While this is one way to add an interesting twist to a race, there are an unlimited range of setups you can use to get the desired skill set across to your sailors.

Boat vs. Boat

Set up a mark that is upwind, and relatively close to the line.  Force sailors to leave it to port before sailing upwind.  This will get port end starters to pinch off others early to tack, and will force starboard end starters to hold their lane, using starboard tack to their advantage.  You can further twist this setup by using the short mark as a first windward mark, and sail a short windward leeward before doing a long windward leeward.

Quick Hitch:

Set up a mark that sailors must leave to port before going to the upwind mark.  Set it up so that sailors must tack off to port within a boat length or two of the start line, if not immediately.  Sailors will learn to use starboard advantage, and will compete to win the boat end of the line.  This will also teach sailors strong boat handling skills in tough, competitive situations.

Early Lanes:

Set up a mark much further off the line, and have it set up so that a sailor starting at the boat end is laying it right off the line.  Sailors must leave this mark to starboard before sailing to the windward mark. This way, sailors will not have the ability to tack out early, and are forced to hold their lane, or eat the bad air early on in a race.  This will put an emphasis on holding lanes, winning the pin end, etc.

Winning Sides:

As opposed to the traditional gate, where sailors sail through a small line in the middle of the course before proceeding upwind, make a much larger gate that sailors are not allowed to sail through on the upwind leg.  This forces sailors to choose a side early, win it, and approach the windward mark from a side of the course.  This will keep sailors from sailing across the middle of the course, and to think a few steps ahead of their competitors.

Risky Business (Editor's Choice): 

Set up two marks in carefully selected places upwind.  Make sure they are separate, and that one mark is considerably more favored than the other.  When you start a race, have your sailors round one of these marks to port, and then round the pin end of the line to port, before sailing around the regular windward leeward.  To make this interesting, you put a rounding cap around each of the two short marks.  For example, with four boats on the course, I will usually say that only one boat is allowed to round the favored mark, and three boats have to round the other mark.  This is done on a first come, first serve basis, and any boat that fouls to get around first must go to the other mark.

This is really interesting because it forces sailors to choose between sailing aggressively or consistently.  It puts a lot of pressure on great starts, and will teach others to cut their losses early if they realize they won’t be the first to round the favored mark.  I will typically only allow ONE boat to round the favored mark, in order to implement a more extreme risk/reward structure to the drill.

There are an infinite amount of ways that you can modify and tweak this drill.  As long as you are creative, you can set it up to stress whatever skill set you want your sailors to get a better understanding of.  Either way, this drill is guaranteed to pique the curiosity and creativity of your sailors.  Get out on the water and start practicing!

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Regatta Dieting

Sailing is a physically demanding sport, where you will expend a lot of energy throughout a day of racing.  Not only do you have to have the strength to do basic physical movements such as hiking, trimming, rolling, etc, but you must also have the energy to think tactically and make decisions during a race.  The instant your body starts to run low on fuel, you will start to break down mentally, prior to losing your physical strength.

Every person’s dietary needs are different, but one thing is true for every person: You need more food, when you are sailing, than you typically eat in a single day!  This is true in all wind conditions, but especially true if it is windy.  Furthermore, how you eat when you are on the water at a regatta is different than how you eat when you are off the water at a regatta.

When you are on the water, you should eat many smaller meals every 2-3 hours, or in between races.  These meals should primarily consist of dietary products, such as energy bars, gels, shakes, as well as other small high energy snacks such as fruits and nuts.  The main reason for this is digestion.  It is well documented that your body uses about 10% of its energy simply digesting the food you eat.  Dietary products, like energy bars, shakes, gels, etc. digest much more quickly than normal food, using up less of your energy on the water.  Also, by spreading out the meals 2-3 hours apart, or between races, not only will your food digest faster, but you will sustain your energy levels throughout the day. In other words, you won't run out of energy in the middle of a race.

It is extremely important to drink a great deal of water when you are sailing as well.  This is true no matter how you eat on the water, but is especially true when eating sport supplements or dietetic products.  The reason for this is that they tend to contain a great deal of sugar, which will soak up a lot of the water you have in your system.  Sugar isn't necessarily a bad thing when you are racing, as it will get into your system to provide energy much faster than normal food.  However, you need to compensate for the negative effects it has with much more water than you typically drink.

Off the water, you should eat much larger meals that consist of “real food” packed with lots of nutrients.  Dietary products and sport supplements are missing a lot of the important nutrients that your body needs during the day, so it is important to make up for what you are missing during a day of sailing.  Usually, you will have one large meal before you start the day, and one or two larger meals at the end of the day.
 
Carbohydrates:

Carbohydrates are essential for energy, focus, and protecting your energy stores.  When exercising, carbohydrates are the first energy source your body burns off.  Thus, you need A LOT of them.  Your larger meals should consist of complex carbohydrates with lots of nutrients and fiber.  This includes whole wheat pastas, grainy breads (bagels tend to have the most energy), some cereals, brown rice, beans etc.  Your smaller meals will include more simple carbohydrates that break down quickly.  This will include energy bars, gels, sport drinks, bananas, orange juice, etc.

Proteins:

Proteins help muscles recover, improve muscle function, and sustain the release of energy to your muscles.  Protein should be consumed throughout the day, not just at night.  Your body will only take in about 40-50 grams of protein in a single meal, and you need MUCH more than that to recover during a regatta.  Thus, you should have plenty throughout the day.  I personally like to include a lot of protein in every meal.  The best proteins come from fish, chicken, flank steak, protein shakes, Greek Yogurt, nuts, etc.

Fats:

Many people have huge misconceptions about fats throughout the fitness world.  They are the greatest source of energy, and not including them in your diet will leave you far short of what you need to maximize your performance on the water.  For example one gram of carbohydrates or proteins has four calories.  One gram of fat has nine calories.  Thus, not having them will likely leave you well short of your needed caloric intake, and you will break down much more quickly on the water.

Instead of avoiding fats, eat plenty of the healthy fats that your body can use.  Thus, you want to eat a lot of unsaturated fats (Polyunsaturated Fat and Monounsaturated Fat), and not eat a lot of Saturated or Trans Saturated Fat.  Unsaturated fats are much easier for your body to break down to use for energy.  The saturated and trans saturated fats are much stronger and harder to break down for energy use.  Thus, it is harder for your body to actually use them.  The best sources of the good fats are nuts, seeds, oils, and fish.  The bad fats are found in most red meat, ANYTHING with chocolate or candy coating (seen on some energy bars), butter, and peanut butter that uses hydrogenated oil (solid at room temperature).

Sample diet for four hour long races with short breaks:

Breakfast 
- 12-16 oz. of Greek Yogurt (Protein)
- Whole wheat bagel (Carb) smothered in NATURAL peanut butter (Fat/Protein)
- Grapefruit or Orange Juice (Carb)

Meal 2 (Prior to Race 1)
- Energy Bar or Protein Bar (Carb/Protein & Carb)
- 16 oz. Water

Meal 3 (Prior to Race 2)
- Energy Bar or Protein Bar (Carb/Protein & Carb)
- Energy Gel (Carb)
- 16 oz. Water

Meal 4 (Prior to Race 3)
- Nuts or Banana (Fat & Protein/Carb)
- Ready to Drink Protein Shake (Protein)
- Sport Drink (Carb)
- 16 oz. Water

Meal 5 (Prior to Race 4)
- Two Energy Bars (Carb)
- 16 oz. Water

Meal 6 (Just off the water)
- Protein Shake
- 16 oz. Water

Dinner
- Salmon (Protein/Fat)
- Broccoli (Carb)
- Black Beans (Carb/Protein)
- Whole Wheat Pasta with Pesto (Carb/Fat)

EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT!  What works for one person may not work for another person.  The important thing to take away from this article is to eat plenty and often when you are sailing!  The amount of races you sail in a day, the length of each race, the wind strength, etc. is always changing.  There are also many substitutes for any of the foods on this list.  Experiment with different things, and find out what works best for you!

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Comparing Roll Tacks in the FJ and 420

In the last Zim Coach article, we looked at the basic do’s and don’ts of roll tacking FJ’s and 420’s.  While all the basic principles of great roll tacks remain the same, there are subtle adjustments that the best sailors make, when switching between the two boats, which make a substantial difference.  In both high school and college sailing, you will switch back and forth often between each boat, and it is important to know what adjustments you need to make, as you will not always have time to prepare in each boat before an event.

To understand why the tacks in each boat will differ, it is important to note the differences in the two boats.  The 420 is built relatively wide, and is flat toward the stern.  Both the rudder and centerboard are large and powerful blades that exert a significant amount of force when moving in the water during a roll or flatten.  These factors all lend to greater stability, and demand a great amount of force to effectively roll the boat over.  Tacks take longer in 420’s because there is more boat and blade to roll through the water.  Combining the width of the boat with the size of the blades also gives you a much wider margin of error for rolling and flattening the boat.  In other words, it is much more difficult to over roll, or over flatten.

In contrast, the FJ is relatively narrow, and has a completely rounded on the bottom.  The centerboard is much less relevant, as is the rudder, making the boat much less stable, and much more prone to sliding.  Rolls take much less effort, and occur much faster than rolls in a 420.

What this means for the two boats, is that FJ’s need more finesse during tacks, while 420’s require more force.  This is not to say that timing is not important in the 420, but that you should put more force into it your rolls, as you have a much larger margin of error, and much more to get to the other side and nail your flatten.  Furthermore, it takes more effort, working against the centerboard of the 420, to roll the boat over.  Thus, both timing and force are critical in the roll.

In the FJ, everything is much more subtle.  Putting a significant amount of power behind a roll will roll the boat over too quickly, ending in a lot of poorly executed flattens.  Remember, the flatten is what makes a roll tack fast.  No matter how big the roll is, if the flatten is not executed well, a flat tack would be more effective.  Thus, rolling hard in FJ’s leads to a lot of slow tacks. 

This is not to say that the goal in an FJ tack is not to roll the boat way over.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  The best sailors will typically get the rudder to just pop out of the water for an instant during the peak roll.  However, reaching that point is more about timing than effort.  Except in light air conditions, FJ tacks are typically executed with the skipper and crew both sitting on the rail with shoulders slightly outboard, waiting for the right time to cross.  In the 420, usually skippers in crews get off of their butts, and slam their hips hard into the rail to initiate the roll.  The FJ is so narrow and round, that by using the right technique during your turn (see previous article), the boat and wind will actually do all of the rolling for you.  Remember, if you do not nail your flatten in the FJ, it will actually slow your boat down.  Neither the boards, nor the boat are particularly wide.  Thus, at the peak of the roll, when the boat stalls, the boat will quickly slide sideways if the flatten is not properly executed.  By using less effort to roll the boat, and focusing on timing, you get the same amount of roll out of the boat, but have a much easier time to properly execute a perfect flatten.

Lastly, how the crew crosses the boat differs in the 420 and FJ.  In the 420, the crew crosses facing forward, and the skipper will look to them to coordinate the timing of the roll.  In the FJ, the crew actually sits backwards, watching the skipper to coordinate the roll.  This is done because of the way the crew’s feet cross in the different boats.  In the FJ, by tacking backwards, the crew’s feet fall in the perfect place to lock right into the strap and hike or flatten without hesitation.  This is not true if they tack facing forwards in the FJ. 

This transition is often mental, and hard to figure out at first.  To make the switch, crews should hold the primary jib sheet in their forward hand in FJ’s, and in their aft hand in 420’s.  All rolling and flattening movements are identical once this adjustment is made.  You are just doing it while facing in another direction.

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

Do's and Don'ts for Roll Tacking 420's and FJ's

This time of year, in both college and high school sailing, there is a lot of racing going on.  Sailors will often go through three straight weeks of team racing, only to sail an important fleet race regatta right at the end of it.  There are a lot of things that you won’t have control over, and you will have to make many adjustments on the fly.  You may also do a lot of switching between multiple kinds of boats, such as 420’s and FJ’s, and there is not usually a lot of time to prepare in both types before each event.  Throughout all of the chaos, there is no excuse not to have your basic boat handling skills up to snuff prior to each event.  Having this under control will give you a lot of confidence, one less thing to worry about, and the ability to get out of tough situations that occur on the water.  Today, we will focus on the most basic and important piece of your boat handling: roll tacking.

General:

Perfecting a roll tack is not easy, and has many parts to it.  It requires an understanding of the boat you are sailing, advanced sailing principles, quick footwork/handwork, and precise coordination between the skipper and crew.  However, when perfected, your advantage over other boats is significant.

Rolling at the Right Time:

One of the biggest differences between a good roll tack and a great roll tack is the timing of the roll.  The vast majority of sailors tend to roll a 420 or FJ too early.  Unless it is very windy, rolling the second the jib backwinds is not ideal for effective tacks.  Many sailors get in a crunch, or get really excited, and roll before the boat is ready.  It’s natural to think that the faster you start your roll, the faster the tack is.  However, by rolling too early, you will get less help from the sails to turn the boat, and will actually steer the boat down with your weight while turning up with the tiller.  This creates a lot of friction with the rudder and the water, and you will have to steer much more to turn through the wind, slowing your boat down.  Additionally, backwinding the jib helps the boat turn during a tack significantly.  Thus, the longer you allow the jib to backwind, the less rudder you will have to use to steer through a tack.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to wait till the boat is at or just past head to wind before rolling the boat.  Waiting until this point will allow you to use less rudder, and will also allow you to use the wind to help roll over the boat.  If you go earlier, you will roll the boat against the face of the wind, forcing you to use much more effort to roll the boat over.

There is no exact time to wait before rolling the boat over, and it will change depending on the wind.  For example, in light air, you want to wait a relatively long time before rolling over the boat, as it will take longer for the sails to help you steer through the wind.  If it is really windy, you may want to cross sides quickly, as soon as the jib backwinds.  As soon as both sailors are hiking, you should not roll at all, especially in the FJ.  Instead, you should still use the sails to keep power in the boat the entire time, and simply switch sides and start hiking, when the jib backwinds.

Initiating the Turn:

Another common error by sailors is heeling the boat to leeward to initiate the turn before a roll tack.  This is more effective in a hard chine boat (e.g. Optimist), because the corner will dig into the water, and keep the boat from sliding.  In a soft chine boat (rounded bottom), like a 420 or FJ, the centerboard kicks to windward as the mast heels to leeward, causing the boat to slide sideways and slow down.  Thus, steering the boat by smoothly trimming in the main, as you turn into the wind, is a more effective way to initiate the turn.

Coordinating the Role/Hitting the Rail at the Same Time:

A simple thing you can do to improve your roll tacks is having both the skipper and crew roll and flatten at the same time.  Anyone would agree that the more weight you apply to the windward rail, the easier it is to roll the boat over.  As an example, let’s say both the skipper and crew each weigh 130 lbs.  If the skipper stands on a scale alone, that’s the weight it will read.  Likewise, if the crew gets on the scale after the skipper, it will also say 130 lbs.  However, when both are on the scale at the same time, the scale will read 260 lbs.  The same principles in this example are directly applicable to rolling and flattening a boat.  If you roll or flatten at different times, the rail will feel 130 lbs. on it twice, instead of 260 lbs. at once.

Furthermore, you will increase the weight the rail experiences by getting your butt off the rail, and landing hard on the rail during the roll (both skipper and crew).  If you weigh 130 lbs. on a scale, and you jump up and down on it, the scale will say that you weigh quite a bit more than you do in actuality.  Thus, by having both the skipper and crew roll using this method, AND at the same time, that 260 lb. number can increase exponentially for two 130 lb. sailors.

The Jib:

Keeping the jib full the entire way through the tack is imperative for maintaining speed and power through a tack.  So often you see a crew release the jib sheet too early, leaving a gap between the backwind and the fill on the other side, where the jib luffs.  This disrupts the flow over the sail, and it will take a few additional moments to refill.  This will cause the boat to slow down and slide sideways.

To correct this, at the last moment prior to the jib starting to luff, pull hard on the primary sheet.  This will cause the jib to backwind much faster, and help start turning the boat earlier.  Hold the jib in a backwinded position until you start moving to the other side of the boat.  As you cross, snap the jib in on the other side with the new primary sheet.  If you execute this with a quick motion and correct timing, the jib will pop full without luffing for even the slightest instant.  The trick to this is waiting longer, and maintaining pressure on the clew of the jib with the jib sheets the entire way through the tack.  Thus, when you let go of the primary sheet, all of the slack needs to be out of the new sheet to continue to place tension on the clew.

The Main and the Flatten:

The final piece of a great roll tack (and the most difficult), is the movement of the mainsail following the roll, and through the flatten.  At the moment of the roll, you should have the mainsheet trimmed in as hard as possible.  As you cross sides (at the peak of the roll), you should have your main eased to a beam reach.  You do this to more effectively control the flatten of your boat, and because your apparent wind has shifted back, facing the side of the boat.  If you try to flatten the boat with the sail all the way in, it is extremely difficult and ineffective, as you are flattening against a sail that is full of wind.  By dumping the main, you can generate a much faster and more powerful flatten of the boat.  Also, at the peak of a roll, your boat actually comes to a complete stop for an instant before accelerating.  At this point, your apparent wind moves back, pointing directly at the side of your boat.  If your sail is in all the way at this point, your boat will slide sideways instead of moving forward.

Now, it is not enough to simply ease the sail.  If that is all you do, the boat would flatten really fast, but would not generate much power from the sails movement from a heeled to vertical angle.  A roll tack is fast because of power generated from both the centerboard’s and mainsail’s movement against one another through the water and wind respectively.  Thus, once the boat starts to transition back downward from a peak roll, the mainsail needs to start coming in.  The main should come back to its normal upwind trim at the exact point where the boat is flat again.  This part takes a lot of practice, but is worth it in the end!

Quick reference guide of the Do’s and Don’ts of great roll tacks:

Do:

- Steer with your sails (trim main/backwind jib)
- Keep the boat flat during the turn before the roll
- Roll later (after the jib starts to turn the boat)
- Roll at the same time
- Keep the jib full the entire time
- Ease the sails during the peak of the tack
- Trim the main in again as you flatten
- Straighten the rudder before you flatten

Don’t:

- Steer by healing the boat to leeward before the tack
- Roll too early
- Have the skipper and crew roll at different times
- Let the jib luff at all
- Keep the sails (especially the main) trimmed in while you flatten.
- Flatten with the rudder at an angle

See you on the water,

Zim Coach

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

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