Some experts say that strategy is more important than tactics. Good strategy gets you around the course faster, but it’s tempting to overthink strategy and forget that you are racing the boats around you. In this post we summarize five…

“Get your head out of the boat” and “Sail by Feel” are both great pieces of advice for racing sailors, especially in small boats with limited (or zero) crew resources. This comes harder for sailors that didn’t grow up with…

Struggling with boat speed? Want to sail more by feel? Understanding and managing helm balance will help. In this post we’ll discuss the factors affecting upwind helm balance and give examples of how to apply them. We’ll cover downwind helm…

Recently, I talked to a sailing instructor who got the opportunity to crew for a top-notch sailor in a national championship regatta. I asked him what he learned. He told me that when the boat was about to sail into…

We’ve all heard advice on how to use clouds as part of your race strategy. Most of what I’ve heard has been vague – “sail towards the clouds” – and wasn’t backed by a good explanation. So, it was refreshing…

Successful sailors know how to manage their thought process during the race. In The Sailing Cycle, we described Zack Clayton’s approach. In the ILYA Fast Forward webinar series, Olympic qualifiers Steph Roble and Maggie Shea described an approach which they…