Training Day - August 2015

Many thanks to Will Tiller for the first session of the season.  Here are Will's notes and observations:

Start Prep: Good to have most of this sorted before the 5 min gun goes

- Transit and while doing this check line bias

- Laylines, both pin and boat

- Favoured side of course

- Is it light or breezy? Easy or hard to live to windward of someone off the line?

- Have a couple of plans A and B for your desired start

During the Start:

Have clear crew roles

·         Bowman (time on distance and calls the line and other boats),

·         Mainsheet (time, evaluates start plan, calls threats and helps spot nice gaps on line),

·         Helmsman (clear communication)

Can use the pin as a reference for your starting position.

Pin start:  be underneath pin with 1:30 to go

Boat start: be underneath pin with 2:30 to go

At the gun:

Clear call from bowman if over or not

Mainsheet calls if you are in right phase or left phase, breeze-wise, off the line

Skipper calls desired mode to be sailed

General Notes from Sunday

Boat End Starts

- Generally an earlier setup than pin end starts, from early set up you have to fight hard to keep spot, with aggressive bow downs when people try to tack beneath you and then sharp bow ups to build separation

- Try not to get yourself caught above the lay line to the boat, its asking for trouble

- Identify if you’re in a bad spot early and get out of there!

Pin End Starts

- Generally to win the pin you’re the last boat to tack over onto starboard so a very late set up

- Remember only one boat wins the pin so it’s a risky start, can always be a safe start to be down towards the pin but above the main bunch fighting for it

OCS

- In general you guys were all fairly good at being close to the line at the gun, but we only had one boat OCS all day, so maybe you could push this a little harder

Racing Starts

- Don't set up too far away from the line, get in there and fight for your position