Laser Cheat Sheet - Sailing Smart 3

By Doug

Laser Cheat Sheet

We end the "be smart" light air sailing with another example. The 1992 U.S. Laser Masters was held in Moosehead Lake in upstate Maine. If you can find it on the map, you'll see that it's about as remote a sailing spot as you can get. But what a fantastic place to sail! In a competitive fleet, I found myself in the unenviable position of having to win the final two races to win the event. So, it was time to get creative and take some risks. There's an extreme case of not sailing the course or the competition.

I'm green on the starboard tack lay line with boats ahead and below. There's a tempting but stationary puff to the right, off the course. I decided to tack away from the mark and competition to get into the breeze and then tack again to come back on a hotter angle to the mark. A fellow behind me said it was strange to watch and thankfully, it worked.

So, would I have tried this without the need to take risks? It would have been very tempting because in light air I prefer to stay in the pressure, but then I also prefer to stay with the competition. So I guess it was a tossup and this time, it worked.

Laser Cheat Sheet - Sailing Smart 2

By Doug

Laser Cheat Sheet

Back to my cheat sheet and a trick that I used at a national championship sailed in another class at Lake Lotawana, a small lake near Kansas City. There were wind lanes coming down the lake, but you could not see them by looking at the patterns on the water. So I tried something a little different.

When we're sailing upwind, you normally look ahead at the sail or over your forward shoulder at the wind, waves, and next mark. Occasionally, you'll look backwards to see what the boats behind you are doing. What's missing from this picture?

We hardly ever look over our trailing or "wrong shoulder" because there's not much going on. But at Lake Lotawana, there was a lot. Whenever I was headed and wanted to tack, I looked over my wrong shoulder and asked myself this question: are the boats there going at least as fast as me? If the answer was yes, then I tacked. If the answer was no, then I sailed through the header. The other boats that tacked on these headers sailed right into less wind and slowed down. It was much better to stay in the pressure even when headed. This is especially important when the wind is light and you have to "be smart."

This was my first major event in this class and others were definitely faster. But using this one trick to always stay in the pressure, I was fortunate to score five bullets and threw out a second. For me in these conditions, looking over my wrong shoulder worked like a charm.

Laser Cheat Sheet - Sailing Smart 1

by Doug

Cape Town - 1996

Laser Cheat Sheet

OK, I have a confession to make. My eyesight has never been good. About 20 years ago, it started to get really bad until finally a few years ago, I was legally blind. Seven procedures later, I can see detail and color, but I’ve never had depth perception and still don’t. Sailing with poor vision has forced me to get creative. The most productive thing was practicing at night to learn how to sail by feeling. Another was learning how to sail the competition. Few people knew about my vision, but I would sometimes get comments like "you only seem to win by a small margin." As Pam likes to say, it was because I was using my competition as seeing-eye dogs.

A lesson from the 1996 Cape Town Worlds was a defining moment and taught me a huge lesson. In the third race, I led 4-time world champion Keith Wilkins at the first mark and then covered him as tightly as I could. His response was punishing me by sailing through headers, going the wrong way, etc. I beat Keith by a few seconds but learned nothing from Keith because he was not sailing his own race. It was the best race of my life and, as it turned out, Keith threw out his second place as he easily went on to win his 5th Worlds.

The lesson learned was that sailing the competition is not covering one or more boats so that you prevent them from sailing their own race, but instead staying close and learning from them. I finished 5th in Cape Town, the same position as the previous Worlds in Japan. I had hit a glass ceiling because I actually thought I knew what to do. The people that are the most fun to compete with have forgotten more about the wind, clouds, tides, gradient this, and persistent that, than I will ever know. So, Cape Town helped me reinvent my sailing by understanding how to sail the competition.

Here's the key question: in a fleet of 50 boats, how many do you have to beat to win? If your answer is 49 as it was for me, then your chances of winning are slim. I tried this for years but there was just too much going on to keep track of, and I knew so little compared to the best in the world.

The correct answer is 1. Whether your goal is to win or simply move up in the fleet, all you need to do is pick your personal coach and watch and learn as he/she unknowingly teaches you everything they know. You do this without interfering but by waiting for them to make the small mistakes that everyone makes.

I did this in the next Worlds which were in Chile. The person to beat was Keith (duh). On every leg of every race, I watched him and learned from him. Each evening I'd update my journal to visualize what worked and what did not. He had led me to all the places on the race course he liked and all I had to worry about was boat speed and handling. Sailing the competition worked, and is how I won my first Worlds.

The truly great sailors know enough to sail the course and its conditions. I'm not as good and prefer to sail the competition, even with my improved vision. "Be smart" is never more important than when the winds are light because of the bigger shifts and the longer time that it takes to reposition yourself on the course when (not if) you make a mistake. It's percentage sailing at its best!

Update: got a great question about what to observe besides where your personal coach is sailing. Unlike poker where you never see the other person's hand, you can always see how someone is sailing - their controls, their body position and movement, what they are looking at, even their body language about their disposition. Lasers are close to identical so, it's easy to copy someone who may be going faster. And it's just as important to see what is different when you're going faster. Things change continuously so it's a constant refinement of what you observe and feel, especially in light air.

Laser Cheat Sheet - Smart Steering

By Doug

Laser Cheat Sheet

When I was in my 20's living in Sydney, Frank Bethwaite asked for my help with his wind tunnel testing as he explored wing masts for the Little Americas Cup. Frank was sure that two wings working together would generate more lift than just one.  It was absolutely fascinating stuff. Forty years later, his design has proved to be correct and has been widely adopted.

Something else Frank talked about at the time was what he called the "Concertina effect" where the wind characteristics change as the velocity changes. Here's an example from a Dallas weather station:

The wind is steady from the south until it drops and becomes unstable, and then becomes steady again when the wind picks up. Here are more pronounced examples:

What we are seeing is that wind up high slows down when it hits any surface, and the more it slows down the more it zigzags. Traffic also does this - when a car stops suddenly others swerve out of the way. You can also see this with molasses slowing down - it does not stop evenly but zigzags back and forth.

The more something slows down, the more it moves back and forth. This is why the light wind is shiftier than a stronger breeze. And why the Cheat Sheet refers to sailing in a light wind as having to "be smart." In these conditions, I would rather sail an old, beaten-up Laser and be aware of my surroundings than have a fast Laser keeping my head inside the boat. So, the first tip for being smart is feeling and seeing the wind.

My years of sailing have taught me to be aware of where the wind is coming from and how it is constantly shifting. Pam and I play this game when outdoors about what the wind is doing and she's getting good at feeling it. On the water I like to wear as little as possible to get the best feeling. Sometimes the wind is so light there are no clues on the water or on the boat about its direction. What I do is close my eyes and move my head until both sides of my face feel the same, and then open my eyes facing upwind. And because of Frank's Concertina effect, I know it will change again soon.

Sailing in really light winds can be frustrating, but knowing where the wind is coming from and knowing it's constantly changing will give you a huge advantage. It's not my favorite part of sailing, but having this advantage makes it a lot more fun.

Laser Cheat Sheet - Smart Settings

By Doug 



2012 Master Midwinters East - day 1

Laser Cheat Sheet

The Laser class selects locations with a steady breeze for major events like the Worlds. But as we saw in Korea, races are often held in very light, fluky conditions. Getting good at this will help everyone, from the weekend warrior to people training for the Worlds.

Dallas lakes have lots of light-air sailing days when the breeze is 5 knots or less. Light-air sailing can be boring and favor lighter skippers, but many championships are won or lost in these conditions. The first column of my Cheat Sheet is what has worked for me, starting with the setup for sailing upwind. Please note that because of a vision issue, I have no depth perception and cannot judge distances, so I have to set the sail up based on the controls and not the actual shape of the sail.

The traveler is easy - just loose enough to not interfere with your steering.

The vang is a compromise - you need it tight enough to keep the end of the boom down and just outside the boat. Most people have it in too far and results in less speed and your centerboard stalling. By footing you can actually end up pointing higher, which happened on the first day of the 2012 Master Midwinters East. The first day at the 1997 Master Worlds also happened to be light and my finishes were a 2, 2. That evening I wrote this in my Worlds journal: Mark Bethwaite made the comment that my sail was different from everyone else in the fleet - more vang, boom way out. The sheeting out was to keep the boat moving but the vang bit really surprised me. I was surprised because it never occurred to me I was the only person sailing this way. You've got to keep the boat moving, especially in lumpy conditions in open water. The reason why this setting is a compromise is because the tight vang really messes up the top of the sail where you would really prefer to have some twist. But keeping the boat moving is more important.

I like to pull the cunningham on until there are no wrinkles and then let it off so that the lowest part of the luff is loose and sensitive enough to read. Other people have a loose cunningham and "speed wrinkles" but these have never worked for me.

For the outhaul, I use a trick from Steve Bourdow (USA, 2nd at the Newport Worlds) - put your thumb on the boom near the cleat and then your pinkie should just touch the foot of the sail. You can have it a little tighter for flat water and a little looser for lumpy conditions, but Steve's trick works well most of the time. I also like it because smaller people tend to have smaller hands, so they would tend to have a tighter foot than a larger person who needs more power in their sail.

For the mainsheet, some people like Keith Wilkins (GBR, 12 Master World wins) can sail with it tight and even block-to-block. I cannot and prefer to foot to keep the centerboard from stalling.

2006 Master Words in Korea

The setup for downwind is easy - everything is loose and the boom is way out and you're sailing by the lee if possible. This is helped by having a light air mainsheet so that it is less likely to fall in the water, plus you have a better feeling for the slight changes in the breeze. But be sure to have gloves and a second mainsheet in case the wind picks up! This happened on the final day in Korea where the wind was light and really picked up just before the first of three races!!

With the correct setup, you now have speed. But speed in light air without being smart will help you go really fast the wrong way.  Sailing smart in light conditions will be covered in another post.