Autumn 2007 Newsletter Content:
Class Win at 2007 Bell Lawrie Scottish Series
Coaching 2007 Farr 65 Fastnet Campaign
4th IRC Class 4 & Beneteau 40.7 class Skandia Cowes Week 2007
Cumbraes Regatta
Coaching Ambition Racing for 2008 Global Ocean Challenge Race
Class win at 2007 Bell Lawrie Scottish Series
Two bullet’s in the first two races provided a great come back to Bell Lawrie Scottish Series after over 10 years away. And with only the passage race interrupting a string of six first places we convincingly won class 9 with the lowest score in the whole regatta.
Richard Smith, owner of North Star (Beneteau 40.7), was delighted with the coaching input, the increase in boat performance and, naturally, the results, stating that we were able to sail away from boats they had previously struggled to keep up with.
The Key coaching points worked on were:
Boat Speed - Time was spent clarifying all the setting tools for each sail and identifying optimum shapes creating speed and height in all the conditions we encountered. The Beneteau 40.7 is remarkably 'tweaky' and responds very well to car and backstay adjustments to assist in 'changing gears' as the pressure changes around the course. We established and used 'Target Boat Speeds' to help monitor our performance from the front of a handicap fleet.
Tactical - whilst the other two race courses were struggling for consistent winds, I was enjoying a refreshing change from the Solent and a race course without the huge tidal influences encountered ‘down south’. This gave us a great opportunity to tune the crew into monitoring the wind shifts and the associated tactical implications.
The abiding memories I’m taking away from the series are port tacking the fleet on the final race to help give us our time in a very short race and tuning into the shifty conditions and sailing some great beats! All in all a fabulous return to a great event. Class 9 (restricted sail class) has provided an ideal springboard towards racing North Star hard . Richard is already keen to enter IRC Class 1 in next years Bell Lawrie Scottish Series and I am looking forward to being back on board.
Coaching 2007 Farr 65 Fastnet Campaign
June saw a challenge for my coaching in the form of the Farr 65 ‘Spirit of Minerva’. Although the crew of 20 and 65ft are much bigger than I am used to, my remit of providing more structure and organisation to the crew was made easier by the split into 2 watches.
The key coaching points we worked on were:
Individual Responsibilities - Clarification of each individual’s responsibility in maximising boat performance was achieved through providing clear understanding of each individual role and how they interrelate. Much of this was backed up with the mental game aspects of mind set and focus. This was introduced by one of my favourite quotes of the moment:
“Winning is not a sometime thing; it is an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” Vince Lombardi
A sentiment so relevant to sailing, in particular to off-shore sailing where the motivation to keep pushing the boat fast has to be internal, coming from the crew as a whole and each individual.
Unfortunately, Spirit of Minerva was one of the many boats that retired early in the race. However, congratulations go out to ‘Erivale’ for being one of the few boats to finish, it was unfortunate that I was unable to join the Kerr 39 as back up helm / trim at last minute.
4th IRC Class 4 & Beneteau 40.7 class Skandia Cowes Week 2007
Cowes week once again provided the opportunity to go racing for myself on a well prepared, well funded Cowes campaign. For the second season Beechwood Homes had chartered Gareth William’s Beneteau 40.7 ‘Challenger’ and recruited a ‘professional’ crew of 6 to guide and lead their 6 clients and guests. With a number of new 40.7’s on the Solent we knew it was going to be tough to repeat our 7th in class from 2006. However we were able to rack up consistent results of 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 3rd and 3rd to finish 4th in a class of 50 plus starters. We were disappointed not to be able to race on the final Saturday and defend our Friday night 3rd place because the boat was chartered out for the Fastnet. In consolation we were beaten by two very talented boats, ‘Amey Love Shack’ the overall Cowes Week Black group winner and ‘Anticipation’ owned and sailed by Pete Newlands, Olympian and multiple World Champion.
We are looking forward to an even tougher battle next year and have already ordered new sails from Hyde and Gareth is in the process or re-rating Challenger.
The key coaching points I took out of the regatta were:
This was a great opportunity to going back to ‘doing it’ and not ‘thinking about how to do it’. And it was fabulous for me to be able to settle into helming with confidence in the crew and their ability to manage the boat where I was putting it. The key points I took out were in reinforcing all the performance models I use as coaching templates, reinforcing how much:
- Individual performances contribute to the whole,
- The necessity for smooth coordination of the crew in manoeuvres,
- The importance of ‘good’ communication – maximum quality and relevant information, minimum excess noise;
- Hitting optimum boat speed,
- Focus when things are going right and refocusing when things are not going right;
- Navigation, strategy and tactics,
- And good driving!
The list goes on and it was all there, a great weeks racing.
Cumbraes Regatta
The last weekend of August again provided an opportunity to sail on the Clyde again being invited to provide some input onto another Beneteau 40.7 “No Sense’. The remit was quite clear – communication and core boat handling input.
The regatta format provided an interesting conflict from a coaching perspective. Stepping on board in ‘race mode’ gave me a very clear insight into strengths and weaknesses of the crew as a unit and in their in individual roles. But the restriction of the race course provided very little freedom and opportunity to address these issues. This highlights another of my core coaching philosophies – Racing is racing, and training is training, each involves a very definite and separate focus, application and mind set.
The key coaching points we worked on were:
Communication - good communication underpins successful performance. It is good communication that gives the individuals the opportunity to be the best they can be. We quickly settled into a pattern with the Tactician providing an abbreviated commentary of what is happening on the race course, where we are and what is coming up ensuring the whole crew were kept up to date with developments, kept involved, kept their focus and knew what they were expected to do.
Coaching Ambition Racing for 2008 Global Ocean Challenge Race
I am pleased to say that I am now heavily involved in structuring and implementing a coaching programme for Jeremy Salvesen and Victoria Sanders-Perrin towards their double handed entry into the 2008 Portimao Global Ocean Challenge.
This is, naturally, a very exciting project for all involved cumulating on 20th September 2008 as they start the first of the 5 legs of the round the world race.
From a coaching perspective, this is a great opportunity to apply basic coaching principles in developing 2 relatively inexperienced yacht racers to compete against some very talented sailors and tough competition.
With delivery of their new ‘Express 40’ expected in the new year we are already well under way with a coaching programme that is taking them right back to basics. We have been organising lots of performance dinghy sailing and will work through a transitionary period in a small, asymmetric keelboat before familiarisation and mile building really begins in their class 40.
The key coaching points we are working on at the moment are:
Boat Handling - having never sailed any high performance boats and with most of their experience being on the Challenge 74’s, it was an easy decision to go back to dinghies to establish the basics of performance sailing, asymmetric work and develop their awareness of speed! But this is by no means just a challenge about technical sailing skills and our programme is already starting to incorporate physical and mental preparation as well as the tactical, technical and equipment of the TPE’s (Technical, Tactical, Physical, Psychological, Equipment and Environment).