From one-designs to the America’s Cup (too many to count), then back again. Ever growing numbers of experienced professional sailors, having enjoyed success at the pointy end of the sport, are migrating back to dinghy and small keelboat classes. Thriving non-Olympic classes like the OK, Star and Finn are benefiting further from the influx, whether motivating others to want to beat them or bringing new tricks. Rod Davis first came to international prominence when he won an Olympic gold medal in the Solings (above) at Los Angeles in 1984, racing with Robbie Haines and Ed Trevelyan. There followed the glittering professional career, also slipping in a second Olympic medal, silver this time, in the Stars in Atlanta in 1996. Now the OK dinghy is the focus of a still undimmed passion for making any type of sailboat go faster – here (left) winning the 2025 World Grand Masters’ title at Garda
position sooner than the competition is a game changer. Good news is you can see these transitions coming. You can see the future if you look. Little puff coming in 10 seconds. Hike a bit harder and sheet the main just as it arrives. Not three seconds after. Anticipate and Act (A&A). With your head up to see a big set of unavoidable waves coming…
Boat is going to need help to get back up to speed soon. How did we know the boat speed was going to drop? Easy – we are about to hit a wave, the boat speed has to drop. No two ways about it. Not that the speedo told me, it’s still working in the past. It will figure it out four-six seconds after the waves have gone by! Another example is when I know I have been sailing thin for the last 10 seconds so the boat speed has to drop. Before the speedo tells me, I am going to act to catch it before it all gets too out of control. By catching it early you make fewer severe adjustments to your helm and trim. And that is always a faster package. Just like the pros winning the transitions in the racing. When sailing upwind, the one that undoes most people is the lulls. Where the wind the boat sees goes down half a knot. The instruments either don’t show the difference because it is very subtle, or the wind at the top of the mast hasn’t changed but the wind below has dropped away and you can ‘feel it’. Less heel, less helm load, in fact feels like crap all of a sudden. So you start hunting to get that feeling back, desperately! So you bear off and reach. Don’t say ‘not me’ because almost everyone does it – TP52s, Dragon sailors, OK sailors (including me occasion- ally when I haven’t taken my own advice)!
If the wind goes from 7 to 8kt the boat feels wonderful and alive. When the wind goes down from 9 to 8kt, the boat feels under - powered and dead. Eight knots has the same feeling, same heel, same tug on the rudder and same wind on your face but a different mental state, because you were living in the past not the future. Mental state is a funny thing. You hear a puff coming in 10 seconds, you get all excited and think ‘oh goodie’, now we are off, but if you hear a lull in 10 seconds it’s bad news. So bad you want to shoot the messenger. The messenger, that wind caller on the rail, knows that too, so does not always deliver the bad news. However, bad news can create opportunities to win the transition battle and jump the competition.
The takeaway from all of this is when you are racing sailboats win the transitions. To do that you have to Anticipate and Act. Be five seconds in the future.
SEAHORSE 35
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