Life in pit lane

Persistent shift

The central pit role involves many unexpected challenges. Tony Bull explains how to prepare for it.

SAILING fast is all about developing innate sensory skills, to be able to "feel" the boat and retrim or react to ever-changing conditions, with helmsman, tactician and trimmers all focused on squeezing every single fraction of speed from the boat.

But all these skills are of little value if the mechanical side of the crew is not functioning. The base level of sailing fast is boat handling; if this doesn't function then the whole operation falls apart. The best steerers and trimmers in the world would find it hard to sail around towing a spinnaker through the water.

All crews need to be able to carry out all the manoeuvres in a race in a competent and precise fashion before we can even think of sailing fast, let alone going the right way.

Working the pit

The most important area of this mechanical side of sailing is the pit, sometimes incorporating several people working together. I liken the pit person to an octopus located in the centre of the boat with tentacles running to all corners of the boat. He or she is the hub of every significant alteration to the boat from setting a spinnaker to taking in a reef. Nothing happens without them playing an important part.
The single most important skill required in the pit/halyards area is organisation; you must be prepared for multiple eventualities. Over the course of a race the pit crew has to cope with many different scenarios and has to be on top of them all. You must be prepared at the relevant time to handle:

* Spinnaker sets, bear away or gybe sets
* Headsail changes
* Taking in or shaking out reefs
* Spinnaker peels
* Halyard adjustments during tacks
* Spinnaker drops of multiple types: float drops, envelope drops, etc
* Spinnaker pole height and angle
* Making sure the spinnaker is packed and ready to go on the upwind legs
* Tacking (is the windward winch loaded ready to tack?)
* Sail trim calls: cunningham, outhaul etc.

These are the manoeuvres that are standard and prepared for (albeit sometimes changed at the last minute). On top of these, consider the situations that arise with no warning like a sail blowout or a round-up. The pit crew must be ready to act and have free an appropriate halyard, change sheet, snatch block, sail tie or whatever is necessary for a prompt response.

It is not an easy job as all this time you are usually being told to keep your weight out on the rail, so expediency is important.

Training

Training is imperative to be able to get on top of these requirements. All manoeuvres must be practised over and over again until they become second nature and all the roles and tasks are allocated and sorted.

During manoeuvres the pit area is often a frenzy of activity and sometimes a bit of outsourcing is required to help out with the multi-tasking. Sometimes it may take two or three people to sort this out, for example on a spinnaker hoist while the pitman is tailing on the halyard as the mastman hoists the sail, someone can be helping on the topping lift or tackline, while a third person can be dropping the jib.

Besides being well organised and reasonably fit, an effective pit person needs to have a good sense of priority. If your bowman and trimmer both have jobs for you that need attending to in the same manoeuvre, then sort out the importance with them during training and address it. Make sure you train with the same urgency you race with so you become aware of these areas.

The pit is an ideal spot for the competent latecomer to sailing. He or she may not have a dinghy background or years of experience, but they can use their skills to become a very important part of the crew. Women are often ideal in this role, as attention to detail and awareness are useful attributes.

Some hints

If you are one of the larger (or circumference challenged) members of the crew, delegate the tidying up and adjustments that can't be done from the windward rail where your weight is needed to someone lighter and more nimble.

Before the start, speak to the tactician and sort out the likely sail selection for the day, so you can put these in easily accessible positions.

Spend your spare time downwind flaking all the halyards and sheets so they are ready to run. Be prepared for the unexpected.

Make a mark on your headstay foil and a corresponding mark on your headsail luff so you can reproduce the halyard tension used on the previous beat or adjust it to suit the trimmer requirements if the wind or sea conditions have changed.

Always when poised waiting for a call from the tactician or trimmer, make eye contact with him or her; it is a lot more expressive and reliable than having your back to them with a whole lot of noise going on and speculating whether that call was "trip" or "trim".

If in doubt, confirm the call quickly, it only takes a second and is better than catching everyone unaware. Once confirmed then look forward at the foredeck action to control the drop, hoist or whatever is happening.

You are part of the crew, so if you need to use a particular winch or cleat then don't be afraid to ask for it. The trimmers can usually compromise or the helmsman can sail to a cleated sheet for a few seconds prior to the sail being dropped or raised while you organise that winch you need. Don't risk not using a winch to take load when throwing off a clutch; the loads are really big and can do serious damage.

Once boat handling has been mastered, trimmers and helm can concentrate on boatspeed and in a fast boat the tactician's life becomes a whole lot easier. So we have a snowballing effect. Training and having a regular crew are so important to getting this all together. If you can't train mid-week, try and get out on the track early on race day and run through some manoeuvres.

From the moment we start sailing in anything with more than one crew, we need to delegate roles in the crew setup. As the boats become larger and the crew more plentiful so the roles will become more diverse and individual. But remember, always at the hub will be the pit person keeping it all together.

Tony Bull's racing experience ranges from sportsboats to offshore racers. He runs the Quantum Sails loft in Geelong and is tactician on the Rogers 46 Shogun.