UKLA Chair blog #51
I am at the ILCA4 Worlds in Greece this week and it is super to see so many sailors from so many countries - 440 sailors from 50 counties. It is a great experience, not just the sailing but operating in such a diverse environment. Although it is a restricted entry event, for GBR sailors it is pretty open to those who have competed in one of our Qualifiers - Portugal in 2024
Today I am writing about Race Strategy. As you may remember previous blogs have discussed Series Strategy (Blog #36) and improving your ILCA sailing through that hard work (Blog #37). We also discussed event preparation (blog #39).
To my mind, race strategy is about determining what you think are the over-riding factors on the race course. It starts by collecting as much evidence and data points as possible. Getting the weather forecast and tidal information, checking the actual weather, understanding the impact of geographic features at the edge of the race course, then on the way to the race course and in the prestart observing the wind and all the time watching - why is the windward mark moving 10 degrees right or why is the committee boat not lying into the wind? All of this feeds into a plan or strategy for the race and first beat in particular, which in turn determines where to start to execute the strategy.
There’s plenty of great books on understanding these factors on race strategy, but it is important to say that no one gets the strategy right all the time and in fact, in choosing one side of the beat or the other, luck gives you a 50% chance of getting it correct! To me, what’s most important is to continually re-assess the strategy at every stage of the race. Are the up-to-date data points re-enforcing the strategy? Changing strategy mid-race should not be taken lightly as making cool decisions under pressure (or when tired) is not easy, but you must keep asking if the strategy working.
To give an example from club racing at Queen Mary a couple of Wednesday ago, wind was a fairly steady 10 to 12 knots, full hiking with fairly regular shifts that seems to appear 2 or 3 times per beat. My assessment of the strategy – take the lifts! There was a pin bias so I started there and went off on a nice lift on starboard and waited for the header. When it came a few of us tacked onto a long port tack with some small lifts and headers and while it looked good at first, it did feel like mostly small headers and sure enough some boats that had tacked right earlier came back into contention at the windward mark. Although the leader came from the left, I felt this disguised the underlying strategy of a more persistent wind bend heading right. I was re-assessing the strategy throughout the first beat and by the end of I had updated it.
So my strategy changed for the next two beats - taking the lifts but protect the right of the course by tacking under others when heading right and above when heading back to the centre.
Another example was at he recent Masters Nationals in Hayling Island. The first three races on Saturday were a fairly steady 20 knots or so with some long slow shifts often resulting in a two (or four) tack beat. Sunday morning looked the same – same direction, but maybe a little lighter at 15 knots so I set myself up for a similar strategy. But as we approached (with a minute to go) the first re-start after a general recall, it became apparent there was a big left shift (it was hard to lay the line on starboard) beyond previous observations. Red flag – what’s happening? The wind had gone unstable. Re-assess the strategy! We probably had ten 20 degree shifts, one every minute or two on the first beat. The strategy shifted to tacking immediately on each shift even to the extent of not having clear air. By start of next beat on the outer loop, slightly further from the land, the wind became more stable and the oscillations less frequent. By the following race, the strategy returned to that seen on Saturday (I only realised after the race!).
My point is that you execute tactics based on your overall strategy, but you must be paranoid in thinking the strategy may have changed. The “best” data points are those that happen during the racing itself.
Snippets:
Open and National Championships - 20 - 26th August
VOLUNTEER at the nationals
AGM 2023 - 16th September
Super Grand Prix at Castle Cove - 12 - 13th August