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!