Reducing Mistakes - More Important Than Boatspeed?

By Doug

I gave a clinic in Colorado a few years ago and shared something that others may find useful.

Besides the final score of a Superbowl, what statistic is most likely to determine the winner? Passing yards? Nope. Rushing yards? Nope. Total yards? Nope. Time of possession? Nope. Winning record against other teams? Nope. All good guesses, but all wrong. The answer is the number of mistakes - the team that turned the ball over the least has almost always won:

• Since Superbowl I in 1967, only three winners committed more turnovers.
• Super Bowl winners have committed 52 turnovers while losers have committed 135.
• Fifteen Super Bowl winners committed zero turnovers.

In professional football, the best talent money can buy is wiped out by mistakes. So, is this also true in sailing? I decided to check it out for myself. Here's a list of mistakes in a typical race:

Before leaving the beach Arriving late at the rigging area Not checking sailing instructions Not checking relative positions Not checking tides Not checking weather Not clearing my mind Not checking the boat Not checking spars, fittings Not preparing spare equipment Not stretching At the starting line Arriving late Not checking tides Not checking wind phase Not checking line sight Not watching earlier starters Not picking the correct end Not anticipating first shift Not knowing the favored side Not having a game plan Not knowing where fleet is starting The start Not picking a good hole Getting greedy No using peripheral vision/time OCS Pumping Not accelerating Not pointing Not protecting my lane Not working 100% to punch out Ignoring location of judge boats The first shift Getting boxed in Not tacking when fully mature Not protecting my lane Not knowing where the leaders are The first beat Not knowing which side to protect Not knowing where the leaders are Not staying with the top 10 Not keeping head out of the boat Trying to win race, not the event

Approaching the 1st mark Not anticipating traffic Forgetting last shift is persistent The 1st mark Getting greedy Not being in the top 5 Tipping Not powering up properly The 1st reach Not protecting my lane Letting stretch/not stretching The run Relaxing Not keeping clear air at all times Not carving Not protecting the inside for room The bottom reach    Not stretching out Pumping 2nd beat Not leading to the right, or Not staying with the leaders Not keeping head out of the boat Not using boat-speed Rest of the race Relaxing Poor communication Pumping too much Not watching others mistakes Finish Picking the wrong end of the line Not protecting the right After racing Not eating pasta within 30 minutes Not stretching Not checking for protests Not writing down everything

One of the good things about keeping a sailing journal is that you can go back and learn from an event, even years later. I did this for:

• World Masters - Chile 1997
• World Master Games - The Gorge 1998
• World Masters - Melbourne 1999

I created a spreadsheet with the races along the top as columns and the possible mistakes along the side as rows. For each mistake, I scored 1 for a minor mistake, 2 for a major mistake, and 3 for a disaster (like an OCS). This turned out to be fantastically revealing.

The row scores for each part of the race told me what part of the race was the most dangerous. I had always assumed that it was the start, but I was wrong. Think about it - In Melbourne we had 72 boats on the starting line that was almost 500 meters long. It was crazy for sure, but the same number of boats had to squeeze through just 1% of that space to round the first mark. For me, the first mark rounding was much more difficult and where lots of mistakes were made.

Lesson learned:

• Get a clean start, get into phase, and think way ahead about how you want to approach and round the first mark.

The column score totals for each race were even more revealing.

Lessons learned:

• My boatspeed was consistently good, but my finishes were not consistent.
• No mistakes meant 4 bullets (ignore race 11 in Chile because I had already won).
• There is a correlation between the number of mistakes and how badly I finished.
• Spending time on physical preparation is important for boatspeed. But mental preparation to reduce mistakes is also important - perhaps even more so.

Something to keep in mind when preparing for Hyères.