What factors do you consider when choosing the leeward gate? Furthest upwind Favored side of the course for next beat Getting to the lifted tack after rounding Traffic Position of competitors Follow the guys ahead, since they must know what…

As the 2019 summer racing season gets underway, your SailZing editors have been gathering race experiences to help drive home concepts about boat speed, handling, strategy, and tactics. In the past two weeks, we found four examples of downwind strategy…

If you have an MC Scow numbered 2476 or earlier, you may have had the lee boards stick in the up position, making it difficult to release them for a tack. In this article, we discuss the causes and solutions…

In Speed and Smarts #130, Dave Dellenbaugh provides a simple graph to help you determine strategic priorities for a race. In this article, with Dave’s permission, we’ll recap his discussion of what’s behind the graph. Priorities – Heavy vs. Light…

Several SailZing readers recently completed a sailing skills survey. One of the areas they requested help on was how to plan the next beat on the downwind leg. We asked Ted Keller to share his thoughts on this topic. Here…

… a book can only teach us so much. Ultimately you teach yourself. Eric Twiname in Sail, Race and Win The sailing season is upon us! Seems like a good time to develop an improvement plan and go out and…

Shiny streaks, or “wind lanes” appear between the darker areas. These  indicate the direction of the approaching wind with absolute accuracy. Frank Bethwaite in High Performance Sailing, Section 5.4 This statement in Bethwaite’s authoritative book peaked my interest. What sailor wouldn’t…

SailZing is presenting a series of “Tactical IQ” sessions to help you think through common race situations. For this session, we put six starting tactics scenarios in front of a group of scow sailors with SailZing’s model boats and recorded…