In-your-face coaching (left) as Philippe Presti gets right in there with the crew of Oracle’s USA-17 during early sailing trials in San Diego – when the giant trimaran was still flying her soft rig. When this mast later broke the team took a brave decision to ditch it and bet everything on red, developing a new solid-wing rig far larger than anything tried previously. It paid off, but only just, as Race 1 of the 2010 Cup was the first time USA-17 completed a full race distance without a major technical failure. Oops (above) – an OK sailor who is not the author… pushes the ol’ windward heel thing just a little too far during the 2018 Worlds in Warnemünde
dinghy gameplan needs to address this. 3) OK technique… and physical fitness, oh, and weight (of sailor, not boat!). 4) Big fleet sailing A 100-boat fleet is way different from our normal 40-boat fleets.
Execution 1) The new boat was finished in April. This would have been all good but then I sold it! I had a change of situation. As in an offer that would pay for yet another new boat and we (as in Chris Reid, who builds my boats, and I) figured we could do an even better one. The second new boat was finished in November so just three months now to work up before the Worlds. That is enough, just, particularly if the latest boat is faster. 2) Coming from the world of spreaders and backstays, the free- standing carbon mast is a new beast.
Sideways bend is no longer shunned, but embraced. No reinventing the mast wheel here, get the best off-the-shelf mast for my weight. I did have to tweak the mast a little. When they build a mast for you the first thing they ask is your weight, that way they decide the stiffness. Lighter sailors have bendier masts. Butthe mast builders all assume that we all hike like 23-year-olds. You know, straight leg and maximum righting moment all the time. When I was that age I would not have to lie about my weight, but now the truth would get me a stiffer mast than I could handle! (Note the objective was to be as good as ‘I’ can be.)
In the sail world, coming from a sailmaking background, I was happy to experiment with different ideas and recuts. What I have learnt (and is applicable to all sailing) is that it is more important to understand how to trim the sail in different conditions than who manufactured the sail. Thus understanding how to get the best out of your sail is different for each sail design. Sails and mast have been ticked off. Learning how to trim is on track at 80% done. 3) Technique and physical fitness. Big mountains and the last to climb. Going to get some coaching for this one. Being a coach by profession it’s easy to see when the coach needs a coach. Execution 100% keeps ringing in my head. The hardest part is right here. 4)100-boat fleet experience. Fortunately I have done some coaching for big fleets and have some great notes. And sailed in the OK European Championships a few months ago with a huge fleet. So tick that box.
Even more to the point: this column started with the objective of showing the need to respect the process in achieving something – progressing into an outline (gameplan) and finally, typing the words to make it real/execution.
Objective > Gameplan > Execution (in that order) SEAHORSE 29
THE FIRST JIB FURLER WITHOUT FOILS
reduced drag and weight
continuous line option
improved safety
reefed
WWW.UBIMAIORIT ALIA . C OM UBI MAIoR ITALIA
SAIL BLOCKS –
DECK HARDWARE – CUSTOM PROJECT ®
S
ROBERT DEAVES
photo by: studio borlenghi
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