Taking a Turn (and observing what's fast)

Full disclosure: this blog post will add nothing new to what is already generally known about how to get a boat quickly around a race course. However, getting the chance to observe some of these principles up close and in person really helped my understanding of them.

Last evening after my Megabyte practice session (more on that later), I volunteered to take a turn on race committee duty for Vanguard 15 Fleet 76. It was a beautiful thing: 15 knots of wind, a mild flood tide knocking the chop down, and all four skippers that showed up brought one of their children along as crew. Call it father-daughter/son night. The perfect setup for fun, teaching, and relationship building. Joel and I being the only two without a son or daughter on hand volunteered to run the race committee/crash boat. From that vantage point, and in between all the yelling and cheering we were doing to encourage the skippers and young crew, I observed several things that equal fast:

• Hit the starting line on time and at speed. The boat that did this all four times won all four races. Now this is obvious, right? But, seeing how this lead boat was able to subsequently cover and control the next boat was pretty amazing.
• Crisp boat handling and crew synchronization is the entry fee. Nothing new here either, but to watch a boat drop two lengths behind just because the jib was brought in slowly after a tack really shows how important basic boat skills are. And, practice will make perfect. By race 4, all the boats were going faster as the skippers and crews got it together.
• Also on the boat handing topic is balance. What appeared to distinguish the top two boats from the bottom two was the ability, call it agility, to find the right balance of hiking with an inexperienced and lightweight crew, and mainsail trim to keep the boat flat. It was windy enough that none of the boats could keep the main sheeted in all the way. The fast boats got their butts over the side and kept them there while adjusting the pressure on the mainsail to trim the boat flat.
• Steering with the sails at mark roundings is very fast. The one boat that did this well came out a length or two ahead at each rounding.

So, like I said, sorry to bore you with what you already know. What I have to offer is the encouragement to take a turn at race committee or crash boat duty some time. Seeing these lessons play out will give you a real appreciation for the fundamentals in a way that you'll miss while busy trying to race your own boat.