Tuesday Practice Video - Upwind and Reach Passbacks

Good execution of the 1-3 Passback around the first two legs of the box drill. On the upwind passback, Max (crewing in boat 2) does a number of things well, from hiking to keep the boat dead flat while pining boat 8 (its always critical to be dead flat in windward leward situations so you don't slide sideways) to "slithering" in through the lulls. When Boat 2 tacks, Max leaves the jib eased on the flatten, showing great Course Awareness that they are past lay-line for Mark 1, and giving Connor the acceleration to break overlap and get Mark Room on the Toppas (boat 8). 

On the reach leg, we see the 3rd boat do a good job of pushing high - the one leg where we do this! This created separation with the 2nd boat, and allows you to either roll them (this is what happens in the video), or "whip and dip" where the crew hikes out, turns the boat aggressively down to a broad reach, and ducks to leeward of the 2. 

Study Question: What can the 2nd boat (who is facing a 2 vs 1) do differently to slow down the passback? 

Thursday Debrief - Team Race Corrections & Intro to the Callbook

A blustery Thursday race day helped us identify some major outstanding issues with implementing a cohesive team race philosophy. The following video shows a Play 1 going horribly wrong for the team of Chris, Connor, Liza, Max, Clyde, and Grant sailing in Sail #'s 2,5 and 7.

The key concept that needs to be executed is Balance; defined as being on the same latter rung as a teammate, or  your TEAMMATE is AHEAD of your PAIR. While Chris (sail#5) could have done a better job of fleet racing - getting into more of the positive current on the right side of the course, Connor (sail # 2) needs to recognize that his pair is ahead of his teammate, and begin slowing them earlier, and more effectively - we see him standing and luffing the main, when he should be sitting, stalling by over-trimming (makes a bigger windshadow, keeps the foils loaded) and sculling to slow down. We see that Chris would have been able to cross is Connor had made boat 8 go slower. Boat 8 (Mack and Dae) does a good job making Chris duck, and boat 10 (Chase and John) do a good job being patient on the inside, and drawing the foul on Connor when he drifts too far from the mark while trapping. Team 2,5,7 should have avoided all this Mark 1 muppetry by BALANCING earlier in the beat.

The next video shows a varying grasp of the playbook by team 2,5,7 - apologies for the fuzzyness.

at 0:17 Chris (in 1st place) calls "Play 4!" His teammates are in 4th and 6th. This play call should immediately alert them to do a 4-6 PASSBACK.

at 0:30 it is clear that Connor is not executing his job of taking out the opponent directly behind him, when he jybes and calls starboard on boat 10. The 3 seconds that elapse between Connor and Clyde acquiring right of way (with an admittedly explosive roll jybe) and the contact with boat 10 lead the umpire to penalize Connor and Clyde for Rule 15 acquiring right of way. 

at 0:56 Liza (now with her team in 1,5,6) does a great job CHASEING by sailing course right of Mack and eventually rolling him.

but...by 1:20, with the Liza clearly winning her pair, she again needs to recognize and execute the 4-6 passback - moving Connor back into 4th by tacking Mack out.

1:26 Instead she inexplicably jybes away from him!

2:15 Liza finally attempts the 4-6 passback, seetting a Mark Trap on Mack

2:18 ...but Connor gets hooked on the outside anyway. The correct move was for Connor to anticipate Mack's luff, jybe, and sneak around the inside of Liza's trap.



We're trying to implement a system where each boat knows and can execute any role in any play. As we take the week of for Thanksgiving, please take some time to memorize the Playbook, found in the Documents and Resources section of this blog, so that you can better contribute to team race practice.

We've had a number of rules instances come up on the water, so its also time to start learning the relevant sections of the ISAF Call Book For Team Racing - a great resource. Here are the calls that I think are most relevant to foul's we've had in practice this week, and to high school team racing in general. Enjoy!

Thursday Debrief : The Gap/Push Concept in Silver Panda 2v2 Video

We worked on maintaining the Play 4 (1,4,5) in yesterdays practice. The key to Play 4 being stable is the 5th place boat gapping the opposing 6, while the 4 pushes the opponents around the course. The same roles are executed from 3:45 on by the yellow Jibs (Trevor Moore Sail#1774, Pete Levesque Sail #888). Check it out: 

0:00-1:50 the boats are circling for control throughout the pre start. Note the crews rolling and flattening every tack and Jybe, and actively steering with their weight and jib.

2:05 Yellow team clearly "Chasing"

2:17 Biggest mistake of the race. White 883 Tacks too late to cover her pair. 883 is still beating her pair, but is unable to slow/balance/control her. Look to go from winning pairs to controlling them by tacking in the perfect spot, and being bow out on the long tack.

3:02 How to use a starboard boat to get out of a pin! White missed its opportunity to balance Yellow 1774 and Yellow 1774 breaks up what could have been a 1,2.

3:30 Rules argument on the "Room to Tack" hail ends - the sailors move on with the race!

3:45 beginning of the gap push concept:
                  1774 Pushes outside at Mark 1, 888 Waits inside
                  1774 Pushes High on the Reach Leg, does a "Whip and Dip" to get free, 888 does a trap at
                              Mark 2
          4:30 1774 Pushes Low on the Run, jybing and breaking overlap, then sailing fast around the
                              outside wing on wing.

St. Thomas Aquinas Wins Atlantic Coast Championships!

Results/Report can be seen here. More details to follow!

The winning team from left: John Monyhan, Connor Correll, Mack Fox, Max Gillette, Dae Kelly 

SP3 Drone Video!

Video from last weekend! Thanks to drone guru Carson Byers for shooting and posting, and to Jody Lewis for encouraging the project! STA Varsity is in boat 4, JV in the "banana boat." Good feedback on tactics, mark roundings,  and leech shapes (too closed on the downwind). Enjoy! 

ACC's this weekend @ Oceanport, NJ

St. Thomas Aquinas will be competing this weekend in the Atlantic Coast Championships at Shrewsbury Sailing & Yacht Club. Here's the NOR it includes a map of the venue.  Of importance: if the air temp is below 45 degrees the RC may require wet suits and dry suits - make sure you bring something that fulfills this requirement (If you don't have a skiff-suit, wetsuit or drysuit, borrow form teammates or get a used wetsuit from Sailorman).

I coached the MASSA qualifier for ACC's at this same venue last year, here's the debrief from that event. As you can probably surmise from the map, it will be shifty!

The Forecast 

The regatta will be in FJ's - A and B division will not be on the water at the same time. Read notes on FJ's here. 

Mac Agnesse will be coaching; he will be at the STA practice on Thursday. Please remember to pack all your required equipment (Pennies! USCGapprovedPFD's!) and good luck to our sailors at this competitive Intersectional (Teams from NEISSA and MASSA had to qualify) event!

Regatta Debrief SP3 @ Hollywood - Arthur Blodgett

Overview/Results
    SP3 was sailed in North Lake on the Inter-coastal Waterway in Hollywood, FL. The breeze began light from the the west, before shifting slightly right, and gusting to 15-18kts by the second A set. Very shifty, but with a creek to windward that had more puffs coming out of it than anywhere else. Staying on the lifted tack and seeing, communicating, and sailing to the puffs was the key. Boathandeling was very tricky as the conditions put a premium on "Dinghy reflexes" - the ability to react instantly to stay flat in puffs, while smoothy moving in for lulls. Varsity overall preliminary results are below. St Thomas Aquinas was 4th, while Pinecrest came in 18th.

 The STofA  JV team raced with Varsity but was scored separately. By my calculations, they sailed as well as the Varsity team, finishing with ~6.1 Points Per Race (PPR), as compared to Varsity's 5.7. JV had 2 OCS's while Varsity had 1; if you exclude those races, JV averaged 3.5 PPR,  Varsity 4.6 PPR. By comparison the winning team,  Pineview averaged 4.1 PPR, 3.1 PPR excluding their own OCS. Overall not the event we were hoping for!

Starting 
As you may have surmised by the prevalence of OCS's starting was an issue for all our teams! JV did a good job staking out the favored pin end, but sometimes had to pull the trigger to early in order to make the end - basically a hyper-aggressive approach that requires practice and precise timing. Practicing test runs at this spot in the pre-start (before 2 minutes) can help you know where you need to be at 30 Sec. and where the pin end layline is and im not sure the sailors were fully utilizing their time pre-race.
   STA Varsity, after an OCS to start the regatta,  got overly conservative, and wasn't always in the front row or at the favored end. With land all around, they should have been able to utilize a line sight and should have known they were over the first race (they were closest to the pin, 1/3 of the line from it). Its also important to note the effect line bias has on how over/under the line you feel. Many sailors judge the line by their competitors, and if the line is boat favored, starting even with a boat to windward will put you over! Conversely, if its pin favored, the lee bow boat should expect to start punched out on their competitor.
   Pinecrest simply struggled with being late for the start, and needs to work on mainsail trim and crew movement in the final approach to keep flow on the foils and a hole open to leeward - when you luff the main all the way or trim it with the crew "nesting' in the boat, you go sideways!
   All teams need to work on accelerations. There are 2 benefits to having good accelerations - you can start at top speed or better, and you can store potential energy until the last second by heeling the boat if you have set up too close to the line, then rocking flat at go. Below is a pretty good FJ acceleration video - keys for the crew: 1) Steer the bow down with weight to windward and sail trim, 2). Help the driver rock by throwing wight to leeward and eases the jib to establish flow 3)then finally flattens aggressively and trim smoothly.

Tuning
    We sailed our own boats for these regattas with the Supersails in which we had practiced for the last two weeks. Still, the vang, outhaul and Cunningham were sometimes neglected. Former St. Mary's All-American John Lowe calls the outhaul "the non-adjustable adjustment" because it should always be tight. In light air this opens the leech, and in heavy air pulling it even tighter flattens the sail. Having the vang off in light to medium air is critical. In the lulls you need to be able to ease the mainsheet an inch or two and have the top of the sail "twist." Having any vang tension restricts the mainsheets ability to be an immediate twist controol. In the first A set, Pinecrest had vang on and was really slow through the lulls. When the crew is hiking at least 75% of the time, begin to vang-sheet. When you are overpowered, the vang can be used to bend the mast and flatten/de-power the sail. When you bend your mast, it creates horizontal wrinkles - crews then needed to use more cunningham to almost completely remove these wrinkles.
    Downwind, crews should be looking up at the sail and judging the amount of twist. Generally, the top batten should be out 10-15 degrees past parallel to the boom. Precisely adjusting the vang while looking at the twist is critical to downwind speed - too much vang and your sail is stalled, too little and you spill too much air and the boat becomes unstable! Pay attention to adjusting all of these basic controls any time the wind strength changes before and during a race!

Heavy Air Reaching 
   With the RC shifting to triangle courses as the breeze built, sailors had a great opportunity to practice reaching. The heavy air power reach is where rock star crewing can make a huge difference, as boats that are flat with the Jib trimmed perfectly get planning, and those that are not, get passed! In marginal planning conditions, the skipper and crew must anticipate a puff  that is strong enough to make planning possible. The skipper should head up slightly to get to the pressure first and get on a hotter angle. The crew needs to transition from holding the jib out to flattening or even hiking. If you only use one jib sheet, the sail will invariably luff during this transition, so crews should practice using the lazy cross sheet (the unused windward sheet) to hold the jib out on a reach, then use the primary leeward sheet to trim through the jib lead while on the windward side of the boat. Note: this cross sheeting-technique only works if the jibsheets are long enough!  Sailors need to move out and back and fan the mainsail to initiate planing (pump the sheet and body pump your shoulders). Once you are plaining, try to use the apparent header caused by your speed to point lower, and move forwards and head up if you feel the boat start to come off a plane. Crews allowing the boat to see-saw as a puff hit, or having the jib trimmed imperfectly led to us being pretty average on the reaches - this is a key skill we need to improve on for team racing so you don't loose your pair when they try to go high!

Finally, check out this interview with Thomas Barrows after he finally won College Sailor of the Year as a Senior (one year after he let this hack beat him at Yale) - his thoughts on working on ones weaknesses, and competing in each race, regatta and practice are pretty on point. Identify what you need to do better from this regatta, and make it a habitual point of emphasis in your practices!

Regatta Debrief SP2 @USSCMC - Peter Commette

Great day last Saturday at SP-2, USSC, Jensen Beach. Lots of wind, 10-15+ from the North, going to NNE as the day went on. There were 21 varsity teams and nine JV teams, with all on the same starting line. The St. Thomas varsity team had its ups and downs to finish on the short end of a five point spread between sixth and ninth. The Pine Crest varsity team kept at it all day, never gave up, kept learning and sailed better and smarter as the day went on. Only one team excelled, St. Thomas JV. Calli Lewis and Dae Kelly were overpowered all day in JV-A, but sailed well and finished close to the top in their division. However, the star of the day was St. Thomas JV-B, Grant Dixon and Brian Buckley. They were consistent. They were fast. Since they were not scored overall, this is a guess, but I am pretty sure that Grant and Brian may have finished out of the top ten once, and the rest of the time were between fourth to eighth, not only winning JV-B, but picking up the necessary points on Ransom Everglades JV in the last two races to pull the two teams into a tie, with St. Thomas JV winning the tie-breaker. Nice going!

 

Our Team Rosters and Race Participation:

St. Thomas Varsity: James Pulsford, A Division (skipper races 1-6), Clyde Wright (crew races 1-4), Conner Correll (crew races 5-6); Chase Sabadash, B Division (skipper races 1-6), John Monahan (crew races 1-6)

Pine Crest Varsity: Ariel Cassaretto, A Division (skipper races 1-6), Ethan Grove (crew races 1-6); Gen Selden (skipper races 1-6), B Division (skipper races 1-6), Emma Tillitsky (crew races 1-6)

St. Thomas JV: Calli Lewis, A Division (skipper races 1-6), Dae Kelly (crew races 1-6); Grant Dixon, B Division (skipper races 1-6), Brian Buckley (crew, races 1-6)

 

Things We Discussed and Lessons Learned:

Organization:

1.      At least for when I am coaching, I see the organization as being by the teams to register, to get everyone there timely, to get the boats there timely, to bring waivers, to set up accounts for registering and for completing the Regatta Participation Forms, to get lunch, and to complete the RP Forms. The coach handles everything else in between. The parents and team members did a great job at all of this. Thanks.

2.      Note that the Oxbridge team (that beat us) brought a light air crew who never sailed. Lesson learned? Calli and Gen could have used heavy air crews, and the light air crews should know that they might sit the entire regatta; same goes for heavy air crews in light air regattas.

3.      Crews carry at all times: bailers and telltales. The telltales help you tell the skipper downwind if your boat is in someone's wind shadow; use the minimum three mast lengths/four boat lengths rule.

4.      Everyone needs Coast Guard approved PFD's and refillable water bottles.

5.      A Division dresses fully 1/2 hour before Competitors' Meeting, while B Division completes rigging A Division's boat.

6.      Coach's Meeting with team(s) 15 minutes before Competitors' Meeting.

7.      B Division (and A Division after the first set) gets dressed at start of second race of division out on the water.

8.      Hang with the team, not your non-team friends or anywhere else. We need to be close for team discussions while the other division is out on the water. When you come in from sailing, ask the coach if you feel you would like to take care of personal needs first.

9.      NOTE: Except for the telltales, all of you did a great job of following the foregoing organizational rules.

Sailing, generally:

1.      Breakdowns: must tell RC at finish; cannot talk to coach first. It's a rule.

2.      Protest: hail protest immediately and tell RC at finish.

3.      Tell coach when you get in if you had any incident with anyone on the course.

4.      General Recall: one minute rule is automatically in effect.

5.      If in doubt, do your circles.

6.      Weather reports: good for figuring out what to wear; not good for much else.

Sailing this Weekend:

1.      Generally, your tactics are good. Your boathandling is good. Starts are where you need to work, and your speed is sometimes off. If you can arrange some joint practices on Fridays at various regatta sites (if you can get there without getting trouble in school) or if you could do some joint practices with the Miami high schools at their venues, that would help a lot.

2.      If uncomfortable with your starting, start at the committee boat (less boats to clear on port). Sometimes, you can even start late. Grant started at the Committee Boat every race. He didn't start late, but he did have patience that the boat would clear out as sailors who set up too early worked their way down the line. Then, he tacked onto port every time and had a nice, steady series.

3.      Port tack approach at the start: sail low first and then head up onto a port upwind angle. Less of an arc to pass through, and the hole comes at you more slowly than if you are on a reach coming on port. Take the sailor's hole that he has been working. Look him off.

4.      At two minutes be in middle of line luffing and standing up. Skipper and crew look for first shift. Start towards that side of the line. Get the first shift and stay in phase.

5.      Start where they aren't.

6.      Always plan ahead, plan ahead, plan ahead and communicate, but what you see is more important that your plan; then, communicate again.

7.      If you are toward the front of the fleet, be careful of jibing at the top mark the first time up. You sail yourself under a wall of starboard tackers and go real slow.

8.      Current runs harder in deeper water

7.      If current is running against wind, it's choppier in deeper water

8.      Plan ahead for the leeward leg. Sail lifts upwind. Sail headers downwind. Simple rule: whatever side is favored as you enter the weather mark is the side to which you want to work downwind initially.

9.      Crew's job downwind: control boat heel and have head on a swivel for (1) puffs/boats going faster (presume more wind), and (2) wind shadows from boats behind you.

10.   Skipper downwind: up in the lulls; off in the puffs.

11.   LOVE THIS ONE: with high school boats having such lousy gaskets, the water comes out of the boardwell like a geyser in a breeze downwind. Brian Buckley stuffed Grant's sandals in the boardwell on the downwind legs. Problem solved.

12.   Right hand advantage, especially at first weather mark. The shorter the course, the more starboard controls.

13.   Vangs off downwind, but as wind builds to very heavy wind, letting it off too much dead downwind makes the boat unstable, and it will tend to want to flip to weather.

14.   Move back in the heavy air downwind.

15.   Skipper needs to hold jib sheet down downwind - losing too much upper leach.

16.   Crew when hand-holding jib must be careful not to pull down on leach too much. Look for a Frisbee shape with a little twist up top.

17.   Skipper is the one holding the accelerator, especially in a breeze - that would be the main. If you are driving a car and you use too round a curve with too much speed, you get out of control. Same thing with a main when rounding the leeward mark or beginning your new tack in a breeze. Keep the boat flat and control the main to accelerate, not to tip you over on your side which will cause the boat to go sideways.

18.   Ease, hike, trim in a breezy puff with chop. Ease, hike, pinch, trim in flat water in a breezy puff.

19.   Plan ahead and communicate. Plan which gate mark to round. Try to get separation at the beginning of the second windward leg. This is when others go to sleep. Big gain potential, especially if you have planned your move downwind.

20.   At leeward mark, slow up and win! Don't get pinned to leeward.

21.   If you do capsize to windward downwind, collapse main into the water before trying to get boat back up. It's easier to get boat up, and you may not flip twice.

 

It was fun coaching you. Have a great week, and remember not to push the starting line on Saturday for SP-3, because the PRO is a jerk.

 

Smooth Sailing,

 

Your SP-3 PRO and this past week's SP-2 coach, Peter Commette