Put it all together
One thing that makes sailboat racing such a challenge is that it's very difficult to isolate the ingredients of success. In golf, you can work on your swing; in tennis, on your serve. Even in some team sports, like baseball, many game skills are individual.
In sailing, however, things are different. We do teach and learn the sport as a collection of different disciplines (e.g. tactics, speed, strategy and rules). But sailing, more than most sports, is very multidimensional. Where else do you have so much interaction between the human mind, body, natural elements (wind, water) and a vehicle (boat)?
Because of this, you won't improve your performance very much if you focus only on individual elements. You have to "put it all together," and that is the subject of this issue.
Focus on your race course decisions
In many ways, a sailboat race is really just a few hours of continual decision-making. If the decisions you make are generally good, you will be successful. If they are not good, your performance will be poor.
Every choice you make, whether it's a major one like which side of the beat you favor or a minor one like how to avoid the next wave, is a reflection of how you see the "big picture" of the race. If you have not done a good job of integrating all the elements described above, then your big picture will not be very accurate. And the resulting decisions you make will be poor.
One easy way to make better decisions is to use a better decision-making system. I usually do four different things when I'm trying to make a choice: Prioritize, Anticipate, Review and Process (not necessarily in that order). Just remember the acronym PARE Here is an explanation of what's involved in each step:
1) Prioritize.
As I've said above, there are many variables involved in sailboat racing. In order to make sense of this jungle, you must assign priorities. That is, you have to decide which elements are the most important to your gameplan at any particular time. Then use these priorities for making decisions.
For example, say you're in third place sailing up the last beat. All you have to do to win the regatta is finish fourth. Therefore, your highest priority is to maintain your position by covering the boats behind you. If you see better pressure to the left, but the 4th and 5th place boats are going right, remember your priority is tactics, not strategy.
2) Anticipate.
If you wait until the last second and make your decisions in a frenzy, they probably won't be very good. A better idea is to buy yourself time by making your decisions as far ahead of time as possible. Before the race, develop a strategic plan as a guide. During the race, formulate contingency plans to help you make upcoming decisions. By doing your thinking in moments of relative calm, you will be more objective and better able to assess priorities.
A typical example happens when you're sailing upwind on port tack. If you don't see a starboard tacker until the last minute, you will probably do a crash tack to avoid them and end up going left. But this is not good if your strategy says go right. Obviously, it would have been better to see the other boat earlier so you could say: "We want to go right so let's duck them."
3) Review.
One thing I've noticed about many good sailors is they have an amazing ability to recall precise details of past races. This memory is important because it helps when you get into similar situations in future races. I know I get a strong sense of deja vu in certain situations (and it's a good feeling!).
However, you have to be careful. Remember that every race you sail from now on will be unique and new, and that's how you must view it. How many times have you gone right on the second beat because it worked on the first beat, but you ended up losing? Use the past as a guide, but at the same time start with a clean slate and assess all the variables for the unique situation you are in.
4) Process.
When you get right down to the nitty-gritty of deciding whether you will go left or right, do you flip a coin? Abide by the most insistent crewmember? Ask your friend Ralph in another boat?
The quality of your decisions will be a product of the process you use to make them. Since you want to have consistently good decisions, you need a consistent and good process. You don't have to make decisions exactly the same way every time, but stay in the same ballpark. Try to prioritize, anticipate and review as much as possible, and involve your entire crew in this ongoing cycle.
David Dellenbaugh, former starting helmsman for America3, publishes Speed&Smarts, a monthly newsletter of how-to information for racing sailors. For subscription information call: 800-356-2200. To order a new subscription, click