This category focuses on developing good boat handling & performance skills. These skills will help you develop stellar boat speed, solid tacks and gybes, and smooth mark roundings.
Racing sailboats rarely function at better than 85% of their optimal upwind performance, even when managed by experts. This failure is due to the additional drag caused by inappropriate sail trim.Stuart Walker, A Manual of Sail trim Stuart Walker’s statements about…
Maybe you’ve heard a great sailor talking about “changing gears”. Did you fully understand what they were saying and how changing gears could improve your racing performance? Let’s take a few moments to review what “changing gears” means in sailing.…
A well-sailed boat can develop a great speed advantage; … so it is not unusual to see the largest race-winning leads developed in the lightest of conditions. Greg Fisher in When the Going Gets Light. . . Sitting on the low…
You need a huge range of mainsheet tension to be fast in all conditions, especially in boats with bendy masts. – anonymous fast scow sailor Want to go faster upwind? Your biggest opportunity may be to pay more attention to…
Unexpected incidents … can jeopardize your results and will need decisive action. Taking a penalty is the easiest solution – hoping for the best and doing nothing is a risky strategy and likely to see you in the protest room. Ian…
The result was electrifying. The catamaran’s performance improved immeasurably, and from only one pound of weight reduction. Steve Colgate, in Steve Colgate on Sailing. If we’re pitching too quickly, and frequency is the problem, we start spreading the crew, slowing…
