ILCA UK Chair blog #122

Jan 27

So why do you sail an ILCA or encourage your children to do so? Well, we all probably started in different ways so let’s begin with today. Yesterday we sailed one race in Queen Mary before it got too windy and I was there for a number of reasons. I certainly fancied a blast in the strong wind even though it was cold – what could be more exhilarating? I also knew I would be content afterwards that I had made the effort and had some decent exercise on a Sunday morning. It was also a chance to meet up with fellow ILCA sailors and friends and at the back of my mind, it’s the opportunity to consolidate training after my Malta camp.

As I have said many times, I am lucky that (ILCA) sailing has become a passion for life and I had the opportunity for it to become so. It’s also “friends for life” – at the Malta camp for example, there were new friends and old from Queen Mary, but also sailors I grew up with – like Sean Craig I have known since I was 12, my brother Theo, Conard Simpson who I have also known for over 40 years – and others like Alan Davis who I have raced with since the ‘80s. As well as this social network, sailing as a master provides an impetus for physical fitness and a therapy for mental health.

Of course that’s not how it started. I loved the competition, the aspiration to keep improving and the sailing itself. I had dreams and targets but certainly wasn’t thinking this is a sport for life. Nor was I thinking of the many benefits like building independence or resilience. But as parents, we can support the aspirations of our children in the sport, no matter what they are, knowing about these long-term benefits. Some just want to improve or enjoy the social interaction or the vibe of competition while others will have dreams to make it to the top.

The aspiration to improve is important to many (not all), no matter whether you are a master or youth sailor, a club sailor or competing at the top and this is the time of year to start turning those aspirations into reality. Developing targets is essential in my view as they provide the motivation to improve and train hard. Sustaining practice / training is never easy and personally I can’t do it without a target. Setting targets that are achievable and realistic is not easy. I guess Robert Scheidt found it easy to set his target for the 1996 Olympics - Gold - but he was the best in the world and World Champion, but it is much harder for the rest of us to set realistic targets. Some psychologists don’t like results-based targets and prefer performance-based ones like “I would like to race really well in this event”. An unrealistic results-based target can have a significant dampening effort on performance if the competition starts poorly, with the outcome that not alone is the target missed but an otherwise decent result is also missed. Also, targets are fine before the competition or even before races, but once the racing starts, the emphasis must be on performance not results; executing the race plan and doing all the correct things at the correct time not thinking about results. Of course, the target could be anything from the Worlds to a club series.

Once I have a target in mind, I like to start with a realistic assessment of strengths and weaknesses in the core areas needed to improve and set practice / training objectives against these. For example, if pin-end starts was a weakness, I could start practicing on my own at a mark, focussing on technique and timing, and over time improving (i.e. my aim is to get a perfect start 30% of the time in training, raising in a month to 80%). This can then be extended to smaller training groups introducing a competitive element and finally starting at the pin-end in training regattas. The format or approach varies, maybe it is just going out 30mins before the start of an evening club race to work on something specific.

That aspiration to improve is important to me, but it is certainly not the only reason I keep sailing an ILCA. And I am sure that’s true for many of you.

Snippets

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