Odds Are

The final conclusion and the decision must be the result of a calculation of the odds that indicate what action will create the least risk of loss and provide the greatest chance of gain at the moment. The odds are often long; it is essential to know them by knowing everything which affects them.
--Dr. Stuart Walker, The Tactics of Small Boat Racing

Know the odds and "everything that effects them." That everything must include your own ability, I think, but how do you protect against self defeat from underestimating the odds that you can do what you know you need to do? Is the answer to be aggressive? Tillerman offers up a great post this week in What Would Ben Do? asking if being aggressive is the key to success on the race course. T-man really got me thinking about this . . . I'm not sure it's simply a case of being aggressive as it is knowing the odds, being capable of playing them, and then being aggressive in your execution. In the case of Ben Ainslie, he knows his odds are better than they are for the rest of us slackers so he can execute more "aggressive" moves with confidence.

But the real question that Tillerman asks is how do we get to be more like Ben? Just be more aggressive? Maybe so. Know your odds, or course, but push yourself a bit farther. Dean and I experienced this last year at the Vanguard 15 Nationals. Neither he nor I had sailed in a proper regatta in about 20 years! We rather meekly made our way through the first few races trying not to get in anybody's way, but as the regatta wore on and we gained more confidence in our ability to point the boat where wanted to, we began to mix it up a bit more. I don't remember which race it was, but we had decided we would start at the favored rather than the uncrowded end of the line. Wow, did it ever get crazy fast. This was sailing with sharks. It seemed as if boats were flying all over the place, tacking where there was no room to tack, yelling and maneuvering. It was amazing how fast everything happened at that end of the line. Yet, we emerged from the melee in pretty decent shape. As we advanced through the 12 races of the regatta I can't say our finish positions improved much (we made too many other mistakes), but we had a lot more confidence that we could jockey with the more experienced crews. We had improved our odds of winning.

Of course, our dramatic crash in race 8 in 25 knots at the weather mark was partly the result of miscalculating the odds of our ability to pull off an aggressive mark rounding (inside a capsized boat.) At the time, I thought my skipper had made the wrong choice, pushed the odds too far. After all we capsized didn't we? Thinking back on it now from this new perspective, however, I'm glad we went for it. If we hadn't, I'd still be lamenting the chicken move going the long way 'round that allowed 3 boats to get by. We were aggressive and pushed the odds, and I feel good about that. I forgive you, Dean ;-)