If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there.
I've always found the toughest part about goal setting to be just doing it. Setting a goal means committing to trying to achieve a specific outcome, and sometimes just knowing what you want to do is the hardest thing. It means prioritizing, which means you have to sacrifice in some areas in order to increase what you're doing in others. There are so many hours in the day, so many places your parents can drive you, so many hours your coaches are available, and of course then there are the things that are always more important than sailing - school, family, and whatever else you have committed to.
A very popular mnemonic (look it up) for goal setting is SMART. S means specific, M means measurable, A means achievable, R means relevant or rewarding, and T means trackable. Not every goal is going to fit into this framework, but most well-constructed ones will.
I've got to keep it short today (my goal was to get a good post out after being overwhelmed with regular work and some important family stuff), so we'll break this up into a couple.
S. Specific. "I'd like to get better at sailing" or "I'd like to have better results this year" are popular goals that I hear all the time. And wouldn't we all like to do both of them? The problem is that they don't really mean anything - they don't give any framework for what you should do to get started achieving them.
In bike racing, we talk a lot about limiters. You have strengths and weaknesses in one set, and limiters, neutrals, and enablers in another. You might stink at climbing, but if you live in an area where all the races are flat, your weakness at climbing isn't a limiter. It doesn't prevent you from winning races. On the other hand, if you stink at sprinting and live in an area where there are a lot of flat races, you're going to need to get better at sprinting. Now. So in that case, a weakness is indeed a limiter.
For specificity, I like to have people examine all of their strengths and weaknesses and decide which are limiters, neutrals, and enablers. Every race has a start, so if you are struggling with starts, that is going to be a limiter. You need to work on starts. So that becomes a primary goal if you want to "get better results." Successful starts have a bunch of different components - determining first beat strategy, picking the favored end, getting and USING good line sights, good boat handling, time-to-line management, good acceleration, the ability to have either a high mode or a fast mode immediately after the start, and probably a couple of others I've left out.
If you don't have a lot of physical strength and you are a Laser sailor, guess what? On the other hand, if you're skippering an I420, not only do you basically need just enough strength to pull the mainsheet in, excess strength is going to mean excess weight, so one person's enabler could be another person's limiter. It all depends on what you're after.
So today's homework is to first determine how much priority you can give to sailing. If you are trying to become a Juilliard-level musician, you can become a very good sailor but the goal of becoming College Sailor of the Year is probably unrealistic (although not technically impossible). On the other hand, if you'd like to go to an Ivy League or other top-tier school and also become College Sailor of the Year, that's a fairly well worn path. A very very challenging one, but it's a path.
And then the second part of your homework is to deconstruct what you're good and less good at, and categorize them into either limiters (things that prevent you from success), neutrals (things that neither contribute to or prevent success), and enablers (things that promote desired outcomes).
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Monday, June 20, 2016
Modes
First off, I don't want to jinx it but the latest Bermuda Race sked has the High Noon still absolutely wrecking it. Super psyched for those guys, tremendous accomplishment for them.
So what do we mean when we talk about modes? Well, thanks to last week's discussion of VMG, we know that there is an optimal way to sail the boat to get into the magical source of the wind the fastest. But thanks to VMC, we know that there's also a fastest way to sail up the course, and it's not too big a step to realize that though VMC and VMG are sometimes aligned, it doesn't happen that often. What those two also leave out is that there are a lot of times when we want to position ourselves in a certain way relative to our competition, or to hammer down and get to a shift, or some other consideration. Different modes are just shorthand ways of talking about ways to accomplish these goals. Without further ado...
Off the start line, your lane and your strategic aims will determine what mode you're in. If you have a nice fat lane and you're in no particular hurry to tack, you'll want to just go into standard "upwind mode" or "VMG mode." This is just you sailing your boat optimally upwind for the conditions - just like you were out on your own were trying to sail as fast upwind as you could.
It might be that you're bow out on a group of boats to leeward of you and you want to trade some of your height advantage to go more bow forward on them. If you're in this situation, first of all congratulations on what must have been a really good start. But if the left side is favored, or if you are really lifted and expect it to shift back before long, consolidating down in front of boats to leeward would be a good move. In this case, you'd go into "foot mode." Depending on breeze conditions and available controls, there are a bunch of different things you can do. In a Z420 in moderate/both people hiking conditions, you could ease weather jib sheet, pull on a taste more vang, move body weight aft a little bit, hike REALLY hard and just fly the leeward jib telltales a tiny little bit. Your VMG maybe won't be as good as it would be in upwind mode, but you'd be sailing the course and your competition better.
On the other hand, maybe you're in a thin lane but for any of a million different reasons, you can't or don't want to tack. Chuck it into "point mode." Point mode can be tough because it's usually kind of a knife edge - it's working best just before it totally stops working completely. You can tighten sheeting angle (pull mainsheet a little harder, use a bit more windward sheeting), and you can also use a bit more leech tension (mainsheet works for this too, as we discussed - so don't pull it twice! - and maybe a little jib sheet also). Weight forward and a tiny bit of leeward heel, depending on conditions (modes are ALWAYS conditions dependent).
"Build mode" is an important one - when you need to build speed quickly, you're in build mode. The object of build mode is to gain boat speed as quickly as possible while sacrificing the minimal amount of height (or gauge). Accelerating out of a tack or other maneuver is probably the number one time you're in build mode. I find sheet trim (which we'll eventually start calling "big ropes") to be the main deal on build mode: you have to be trimmed enough, but overtrimming is a speed build killer. And the rate of trim has to match the rate of acceleration.
"Park" is also super important. There are a zillion times in a team race when you might need to park, and pre-start always offers some chance to show off your parking skills.
The big takeaway from this particular post is not to go into the minutia of how you execute any particular mode in any particular boat or conditions, simply because they vary too much along those variables. The important thing is to recognize that boats have these different modes, and the sailors and teams that really smash it are the ones who recognize when a particular mode is needed, and quickly communicate and begin executing the appropriate adjustments to move into that mode. Start by talking about it in the boat - "I think we need to be in foot mode here," for example. Practice different techniques and adjustments for executing the different modes. Don't be shy about making mistakes, and don't get hung up on them when you do. Simply learn and move on. Then, start integrating the recognition and execution pieces and you will have some nasty weapons to start using.
So what do we mean when we talk about modes? Well, thanks to last week's discussion of VMG, we know that there is an optimal way to sail the boat to get into the magical source of the wind the fastest. But thanks to VMC, we know that there's also a fastest way to sail up the course, and it's not too big a step to realize that though VMC and VMG are sometimes aligned, it doesn't happen that often. What those two also leave out is that there are a lot of times when we want to position ourselves in a certain way relative to our competition, or to hammer down and get to a shift, or some other consideration. Different modes are just shorthand ways of talking about ways to accomplish these goals. Without further ado...
Off the start line, your lane and your strategic aims will determine what mode you're in. If you have a nice fat lane and you're in no particular hurry to tack, you'll want to just go into standard "upwind mode" or "VMG mode." This is just you sailing your boat optimally upwind for the conditions - just like you were out on your own were trying to sail as fast upwind as you could.
It might be that you're bow out on a group of boats to leeward of you and you want to trade some of your height advantage to go more bow forward on them. If you're in this situation, first of all congratulations on what must have been a really good start. But if the left side is favored, or if you are really lifted and expect it to shift back before long, consolidating down in front of boats to leeward would be a good move. In this case, you'd go into "foot mode." Depending on breeze conditions and available controls, there are a bunch of different things you can do. In a Z420 in moderate/both people hiking conditions, you could ease weather jib sheet, pull on a taste more vang, move body weight aft a little bit, hike REALLY hard and just fly the leeward jib telltales a tiny little bit. Your VMG maybe won't be as good as it would be in upwind mode, but you'd be sailing the course and your competition better.
On the other hand, maybe you're in a thin lane but for any of a million different reasons, you can't or don't want to tack. Chuck it into "point mode." Point mode can be tough because it's usually kind of a knife edge - it's working best just before it totally stops working completely. You can tighten sheeting angle (pull mainsheet a little harder, use a bit more windward sheeting), and you can also use a bit more leech tension (mainsheet works for this too, as we discussed - so don't pull it twice! - and maybe a little jib sheet also). Weight forward and a tiny bit of leeward heel, depending on conditions (modes are ALWAYS conditions dependent).
"Build mode" is an important one - when you need to build speed quickly, you're in build mode. The object of build mode is to gain boat speed as quickly as possible while sacrificing the minimal amount of height (or gauge). Accelerating out of a tack or other maneuver is probably the number one time you're in build mode. I find sheet trim (which we'll eventually start calling "big ropes") to be the main deal on build mode: you have to be trimmed enough, but overtrimming is a speed build killer. And the rate of trim has to match the rate of acceleration.
"Park" is also super important. There are a zillion times in a team race when you might need to park, and pre-start always offers some chance to show off your parking skills.
The big takeaway from this particular post is not to go into the minutia of how you execute any particular mode in any particular boat or conditions, simply because they vary too much along those variables. The important thing is to recognize that boats have these different modes, and the sailors and teams that really smash it are the ones who recognize when a particular mode is needed, and quickly communicate and begin executing the appropriate adjustments to move into that mode. Start by talking about it in the boat - "I think we need to be in foot mode here," for example. Practice different techniques and adjustments for executing the different modes. Don't be shy about making mistakes, and don't get hung up on them when you do. Simply learn and move on. Then, start integrating the recognition and execution pieces and you will have some nasty weapons to start using.
Friday, June 17, 2016
A Bunch of Definitions Part 1
A lot of these will come in handy for people at Brooke Gonzalez this weekend. I got booted off the wheel of the M32 last night because the traveler guy had an injury which would have made doing traveler not so fun for him. So I did traveler and was in charge of monitoring relative performance of the boats, and observing differences in our setups. I wished the whole time that we had a voice recording of the session as we were speed tuning against a boat that just-named College Sailor of the Year Nevin Snow was driving, with a bunch of match race world tour guys sailing with him. Almost everything we said was stuff that civilians wouldn't have understood but that every sailor needs to know.
If you are one of the people going to Bermuda, good luck have fun keep your eyes open and CLIP IN EVERY FRICKING INSTANT YOU ARE ON DECK. I DON'T CARE. NO VIKING FUNERALS, PLEASE!
If you are one of the people going to Bermuda, good luck have fun keep your eyes open and CLIP IN EVERY FRICKING INSTANT YOU ARE ON DECK. I DON'T CARE. NO VIKING FUNERALS, PLEASE!
If you are sailing 420s or 29ers, please start using these terms in the boat. Even if you are sailing Lasers, please use these terms in your head as the words you think will become the words you say. I once met a Laser sailor who insisted on calling the cunningham the "ooker" simply because that's what he had taken to calling it. It stands out to me 20 years after I heard it, because it was probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm not kidding. Also talking to your coaches (assuming you have good coaches, as you will at Gonzalez) becomes much easier when you use the right words correctly.
It's possible that every other post for the next few weeks will just be definitions.
These are in random order.
VMG - Velocity Made Good. Imagine that there is some magical place that is the source of the wind you are sailing in. Imagine it is very far away. How fast you are getting to that magical place is your VMG. If you are going downwind, VMG is how fast you are getting away from that magical place. VMG has nothing to do with a mark or a finish line or Bermuda (Bermuda Race starts today), or anything other than that magical source of the wind place. The formula for determining your VMG is very easy. It is VMG = Cos(TWA) x Vs. "Vs" stands for "Velocity, ship" in sailing instrument-speak but you can call it "boat speed." Everyone else does. VMG relates to how well you are sailing the boat. A wind shift does not change your VMG.
VMC - Velocity Made good on Course. VMC, as opposed to VMG, has everything to do with how fast you are getting to the next mark, the finish line, Bermuda (Bermuda Race starts today), etc. When you are talking about your rate of progress to a hard, fixed destination, you are talking about VMC. In short course racing, it is almost never called "VMC" for a couple of reasons that are not important now. You will hear people saying things like "VMG to the mark" instead, and that is fine in every respect. The important thing is to differentiate - VMG used on its own means "progress into the wind" (or away from the wind if you are going downwind), and if you want to express your rate of progress to a point, you need to call it either VMC or "VMG to (whatever fixed point you're trying to get to)." VMC relates to how well you are sailing the course. A wind shift does change your VMC.
TWA - True Wind Angle. The angle, in degrees, between your current course through the water and the wind's direction. If your heading is 300 and the true wind direction (TWD) is 345, your true wind angle is 45*. Bonus question 1: if your heading is 300 and the TWD is 345, which tack are you on? Bonus question 2: if your heading is 300 and the TWD is 345, what would you assume your heading on the other tack will be? Bonus question 3: if your heading is 300 and the TWD is 345 and you are going 7 knots, what is your VMG?
Gauge - Pronounced "gage" not "gowge." Two boats are sailing on the same tack, in close proximity to one another. If one is gaining windward distance relative to the other, that boat is "gaining gauge." If the leeward most boat is the one gaining gauge, they are said to be "closing gauge." If the windward boat is doing the gaining, you usually say they are "opening gauge." A boat that is gaining gauge is also frequently said to be "elevating" relative to the other. If you have better pointing, you will gain gauge and elevate. Gauge is basically interchangeable with "height." If you are gaining gauge, you are gaining height. There are times when it is more specific to use one than the other but you are far from needing to worry about those.
Track - Two boats are sailing on the same tack, in close proximity to one another. A boat that is going forward relative to the other is said to be gaining track. It's also simply referred to as going "bow forward." Tack is used interchangeable with speed, and also "bow forward." It's all about how and when you use them, but if you say "we're going bow forward on them" (for example) everyone on the boat will know what you're talking about.
If the two boats in this picture are doing things right, they will just about be wearing out the words and phrases in today's definitions set.
Net Gain or Loss- Net gain or loss is your comparative VMG relative to other boats on the same tack that are immediately around you. Imagine you are sailing against one other boat. If you are gaining gauge AND track, then you are definitely making a net gain. If you have really good pointing but your speed is not as good, if your pointing advantage is bigger than your speed disadvantage, then you are making a net gain. On the boat, you might say "gauge to us, track to them, net to us." That is a VERY efficient way of saying "we're point better than they are, but they are going a little faster than we are, and I think overall that our VMG is a little better." You could also say "height to us, speed to them, net to us" and everyone would understand you. It's all about efficient communication. The magic is in being able to decide what the net actually is. Very easy to do when there is land behind the other boat (as people who wen to FL this spring would have learned), quite not easy when you aren't looking at land behind the other boat. It's an ability that develops over time with LOTS of practice.
Foils - Collective term for your boat's sails, rudder, and daggerboard/centerboard/keel. They are all foils. Often people mean "underwater foils" when they say "foils" - they mean to exclude the sails. Learn to deal with that one.
Blades - The underwater foils, referred to correctly. Many Laser sailors own "blade bags." Get it?
Flow - The appropriate fluid moving over a foil. For sails, the appropriate fluid is air. For blades, it is water. If you have air flow on your blades, things have gone or are about to go really quite badly. "Flow" is the opposite of "stall."
Stall - When the appropriate fluid is NOT moving over a foil. When you overtrim the main and the top batten telltale dies and points straight down, you have "stalled the main." Stall can happen from bad trim, or from pointing too high or from pointing too low. Very good sailors learn to feel flow and stall at all times, and can tell when the boat is gaining better flow or is about to stall.
That's enough for today, I have to go build wheels. If you are at Brooke, pay attention, take notes, and use the right fricking words, okay?
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Sheeting angle versus leech tension
Starting off with a favorite. A quick housekeeping note before we get into it: any word with a * is a word I don't necessarily expect you to know right away. One of the next posts will be about the language of speed, which will have a bunch of these defined. Some of them are worth posts all on their own. And always feel free to comment or ask questions.
In a lot of boats, pulling on the sheet is responsible for pulling the sail both down and in. When you pull the sail down, you are first of all affecting the leech tension. When you pull the sail in, you are primarily affecting the sheeting angle. As you progress, more boats will offer you the opportunity to do one without the other. Being able to adjust the one without affecting the other opens up a lot of sail trim possibilities, but even when the two are connected (Lasers, school boats), being aware of what you're after can help a lot.
C420, I420, and 29er sailors get to disconnect the two on the mainsheet by using a bridle, and windward sheeting the jib lets us adjust the jib's sheeting angle without adding leech tension. 29er jib cars get pinned in different positions to adjust sheeting angle. You can't adjust them in real time like a lot of other boats let you do, but it's a good start. Vang sheeting in a Laser, where the vang is tight enough to keep the boom down even when you ease the sheet out, is another example of separating the leech tension and sheeting angle functions.
Some SG sailors will remember a very light day this spring when I told some skippers to sheet Z420 mains directly from the boom. This allowed them to pull the sail in without pulling it down. The picture below shows what I was after there.
This is a TP52 and I'll use them a lot to illustrate points, both because they have the full array of sail controls and because there are tons of easy to find pictures that work for what I want to show. You can clearly see that their boom is above centerline here. As you go up the main, at some point the leech is just on centerline, and then towards the top it is below centerline. There are a bunch of reasons why you'd want to do this, prime among them would be wind shear* which we'll discuss later.
My red arrow in this picture points to the in/out jib track, which you can see just below the clew. The jib sheeting angle is every bit as important (often more so) than the main's sheeting angle. Notice also the main traveler position here - not even close to as high as in the pic above. I'd bet the mainsheet is so tight in this pic that the mainsheet winch is begging for mercy.
A tight leech is great in a lot of conditions - flat water and medium breeze prime among them. With a tight leech, you get to go fast and point high, but there is a tight groove*. Too tight a leech and the sail will stall*, cratering both your speed and pointing. This is why so many of you heard me say "when in doubt, ease it out" this spring.
A looser, twisted leech allows the sail to easily "spill" wind. This is great in light air to prevent stall, and also in heavy air to prevent excess heel. It also gives the boat a wide steering groove, which lets you go fast and point okay but lets you steer around and through chop without slowing down.
A great thought exercise while you are sailing is to think about which adjustment you'd prefer to make in different situations. Sailing along in flat water, fully hiked, and get a huge puff? Easing leech tension allows you to spill some of that excess power (there is also a thing in there about why Roy and I disagree so much about the truth of "ease/hike/trim," which is a topic for another day). Want to move bow forward relative to another boat? Keep leech tension on, ease sheeting angle a bit, and motor down over them. Big set of chop that you need to get through - twist the sails by having slightly looser leeches but tight sheeting angle is your fastest way through that.
Most of the boats you'll sail for the next couple of years don't give you the range of control options that would be ideal, but you need to start thinking about leech tension versus sheeting angle all the time. It's really important.
In a lot of boats, pulling on the sheet is responsible for pulling the sail both down and in. When you pull the sail down, you are first of all affecting the leech tension. When you pull the sail in, you are primarily affecting the sheeting angle. As you progress, more boats will offer you the opportunity to do one without the other. Being able to adjust the one without affecting the other opens up a lot of sail trim possibilities, but even when the two are connected (Lasers, school boats), being aware of what you're after can help a lot.
C420, I420, and 29er sailors get to disconnect the two on the mainsheet by using a bridle, and windward sheeting the jib lets us adjust the jib's sheeting angle without adding leech tension. 29er jib cars get pinned in different positions to adjust sheeting angle. You can't adjust them in real time like a lot of other boats let you do, but it's a good start. Vang sheeting in a Laser, where the vang is tight enough to keep the boom down even when you ease the sheet out, is another example of separating the leech tension and sheeting angle functions.
Some SG sailors will remember a very light day this spring when I told some skippers to sheet Z420 mains directly from the boom. This allowed them to pull the sail in without pulling it down. The picture below shows what I was after there.
This is a TP52 and I'll use them a lot to illustrate points, both because they have the full array of sail controls and because there are tons of easy to find pictures that work for what I want to show. You can clearly see that their boom is above centerline here. As you go up the main, at some point the leech is just on centerline, and then towards the top it is below centerline. There are a bunch of reasons why you'd want to do this, prime among them would be wind shear* which we'll discuss later.
My red arrow in this picture points to the in/out jib track, which you can see just below the clew. The jib sheeting angle is every bit as important (often more so) than the main's sheeting angle. Notice also the main traveler position here - not even close to as high as in the pic above. I'd bet the mainsheet is so tight in this pic that the mainsheet winch is begging for mercy.
A tight leech is great in a lot of conditions - flat water and medium breeze prime among them. With a tight leech, you get to go fast and point high, but there is a tight groove*. Too tight a leech and the sail will stall*, cratering both your speed and pointing. This is why so many of you heard me say "when in doubt, ease it out" this spring.
A looser, twisted leech allows the sail to easily "spill" wind. This is great in light air to prevent stall, and also in heavy air to prevent excess heel. It also gives the boat a wide steering groove, which lets you go fast and point okay but lets you steer around and through chop without slowing down.
A great thought exercise while you are sailing is to think about which adjustment you'd prefer to make in different situations. Sailing along in flat water, fully hiked, and get a huge puff? Easing leech tension allows you to spill some of that excess power (there is also a thing in there about why Roy and I disagree so much about the truth of "ease/hike/trim," which is a topic for another day). Want to move bow forward relative to another boat? Keep leech tension on, ease sheeting angle a bit, and motor down over them. Big set of chop that you need to get through - twist the sails by having slightly looser leeches but tight sheeting angle is your fastest way through that.
Most of the boats you'll sail for the next couple of years don't give you the range of control options that would be ideal, but you need to start thinking about leech tension versus sheeting angle all the time. It's really important.
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