UKLA Chair blog #18
Today’s blog is about rabbit runs! Hopefully, I haven’t lost too many of you already, but I love rabbit runs. What’s a rabbit run? It is used to start a race to windward without a starting line when each boat on starboard (or port) in turn passes behind a boat, the rabbit, on port (or starboard) roughly 2 boat lengths apart. It is a common training exercise as it allows a group of boats to start evenly and try to hold their lane to windward as long as possible.
Rabbit runs are used by everyone from club sailors to Olympics medallists. As a training exercise, a rabbit run has many useful purposes. Fundamentally is a test of boat speed allowing boat set-up and technique to be refined in different conditions. It is also a test of concentration as a momentary lapse will see you drop out of line. For less experienced sailors, it teaches you about wind shifts as the angle between boats above and below changes but (and this is sometimes under-rated) even for the most experienced sailors it allows you to assimilate and recognise for future use subtle wind changes and patterns (the so-called intuitive feel for the wind that is actually learned). You also develop the refined trade-off between speed and height in response to specific types of wave and sea condition – developing the “feel” needed to sail fast.
Thinking about recent rabbit runs, my first thought turns to the post lockdown period when organised sailing was not yet allowed and we had more than 20 ILCAs on the water at Queen Mary doing spontaneous rabbit run races in the glorious weather – it felt like some sort of relief. And this year prior to the Master Worlds in Mexico I did a couple of sessions with my friend Orlando Gledhill where we simply lined up together and sailed upwind as if on a rabbit run. These runs are intense and become like a duel, and that’s why rabbit runs become so compelling – no one wants to drop out of the line! It’s why it works for any two sailors of comparable standard in any stretch of water around the country. Then we arrived in Mexico, the 8 GBR sailors where lucky enough to have Micky Beckett as our coach and guess what - we spent two days before doing rabbit runs, refining our approach to wind and wave conditions, with expert input from Micky.
Of course, there’s a load of variations from runs that just finish after 5mins or others that turn into a race to a windward mark. You can try different settings or practice holding your height or footing – the options are endless.
So my message to anyone out there who wants to improve, get out on the water with a couple of mates and do some rabbit runs!
All the best
Mark
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