Feeling good and going fast

Australian Sailing - March 2011

Sailing Skills

It's good to have some tricks to help you discover and learn more about the skills of sailing. Here are a few drills and ideas that can improve your feel and appreciation of how to make a dinghy go faster.

Upwind Drills

Steering with rope (use when it’s 10kts plus). Tie the end of your mainsheet or a short piece of rope to the end of the tiller and then steer with it rather than the tiller extension. Now that you can’t push the tiller you are forced to anticipate when you have to steer up as well as ‘ease’ the helm accordingly.

Initially, you’ll do large corrections, but after a while your steering groove will narrow and you’ll be more accurate. After this time, go back to the tiller extension for a few minutes. Swap back and forth for a few minutes to try to transfer what you learn by steering with the rope to steering with the extension.

This drill was invented by legendary coach Mike Fletcher and he shared it with me when I was learning how to sail in big waves in Moreton Bay. Fletch used this drill to stop people hacking away at the helm and instead feel what the boat wanted to do. It also encourages you to be more active in your sheeting and body movements to help steer the boat. After some practice steering with the rope, you may well sail as fast as when you hold the tiller.

Looking behind (all wind strengths). Steer upwind as normal, but find something behind you to stare at. This one is pretty simple, but is designed to stop you being fixated on the wave in front of the bow or the tell tails. You should find yourself becoming more aware of how the boat feels literally through the ‘seat of your pants’ as well as the feel via the tiller.

I favour the looking behind drill over blindfold sailing because vision is too big a sense in sailing to block out completely, and it’s good to see the horizon.

If you just sail once a week, the look behind drill is a great one to do on the way out to the start to rapidly re-acquaint yourself with the boat’s feel. Spend five minutes sailing upwind on this drill, then expand your awareness into what the wind is doing over the course and general strategy. This drill will stimulate your automatic trimming skills while you’re looking around.

Reduce Friction (under 8kts). When the wind is lighter you need a strong awareness of what the boat wants to do. In particular you need cues as to whether the boat wants to sail a little higher or lower. Much of this can come from the tell tails on the shrouds, jib and main.

Another way to increase your feel is to try to reduce friction where your hands feel the boat. For example, you can turn ratchet blocks off and, on a boat like a Laser, ease the traveller a little so there’s not so much friction on the tiller. The effect is to ‘turn up’ the strength of the feelings you get from the boat, making it a little easier to trim the boat accurately.

Downwind Drills

Cleating off the mainsheet (and spinnaker; 10kts plus). Trim the sail(s) well for running and then simply cleat them off. The hand(s) that is now free can be used to assist your movement around the boat to adjust the trim of the hull to try to catch waves.

When I do this, I also feel a little more relaxed as I don’t have to worry about the sheet anymore! You’ll learn about which waves the boat will catch without pumping or rocking.. It can help make your downwind technique more efficient.

Tie off tiller (under 14kts). Don’t tie it so it’s locked in the middle, but so it can move about 30 degrees to each side. You want to discover more about how the boat behaves with little input on the helm (aka brake). Locking the tiller in one spot or taking the rudder off altogether, creates unrealistic conditions. The rudder contributes to the overall balance of the boat, so training without it only teaches you how to sail a boat without a rudder.

The above drills should teach you a lot about the feel of a boat in training since you’ll be fairly relaxed. To help the ‘feel’ transfer to races (when you might be a little less relaxed) you should attempt the same drills for a minute or two during races. Except the tied-off tiller drill, of course, as it may lead to a crash!