Bocha & Manny's verslag en filmpje
26-05-2010Voor alle geïnteresseerden is hier Bocha’s verslag van
OCN Clinic Workum 2010, May 7th - 10th
1st Day – Rigging, boatspeed & technique
The first day of the clinic is always used to see the level of the sailors and to work on technique and boat rigging. Knowing many of the sailors, and being familiar with the venue and the other coaches made the first day a lot better than last year. We had a short introduction with the sailors and explained what was the goal for the day.
After the meeting we spent about half an hour checking boats and sails, and making sure everyone was rigging their sails properly for the conditions.
With the wind blowing from 12 to 15 kts in the morning, we found some important comments in the sail preparation:
- Corner ties need to be quiet tight for these conditions, and we saw many boats with too much separation between the sail and the mast. With this breeze, the mast will bend, so the key is to have the corners very tight and maybe the middle sail ties a little loose. But just a little, maybe 2-3 mm. Not more than that.
- The boom sail ties were too tight. While in the mast you need to have them tight, in the boom you will use more separation, so the shape of the sail is more even and also the sail can go free from one side to another.
- In the top coner tie, many sailors are using the little plastic tube that comes with the mast. We recommend not to use them, because it makes it more difficult to adjust, specially if you are in the water.
- For the mast, we always recommend to use the sail ties and corner ties with 2 loops around. If you use only one, the lines will stretch a lot and ruin the shape of the sail. For the boom, the corners with 2 loops and the sail ties, with one is fine. And for safety knot, just do an extra turn.
- For mast rake, many of the sailors are worried too much about having 1 cm more or less, and it is not that important how much is the measurement. More important is to check and adjust in the water according to the performance and shape of the sail.
On the water we did a couple of races to warm up and then divided into groups to work on speed test and boat-handling. Each group had different observations according to the level of the sailors. There is a big difference between the top 5 and the 30th boat, so dividing into groups is extremely necessary.
Since the wind and conditions were good, we stayed out longer and did some extra drills all together before going in. We focused specially on reaching and downwind speed. With the sailors tired and cold, we decided the debriefing was moved to the next morning.
2nd day – Boat Rigging + Tactics
The wind started really light, so it was perfect to do the video debriefing in the morning. We went through the practice and checked many of the sail triming adjustments. We also observed some boat handling, maneuvers and different techniques.
Some of the important ideas mentioned were:
- extra weight in the boat. Many sailors had a lot of unnecesary stuff in their boats, and all of these is extra weight and less performance: water bottles, lunch boxes and extra sailing gear should always be on the coach boat, not inside the optis.
- Bailing technique was described and explained with good images. It is important to bail as fast as possible to spend less time with the bailer in the hand and without loosing the focus on the speed. The common mistakes are to put the head inside the boat, loose the timing with the waves and let the sail open too much.
- Upwind Speed: we saw very good images on how to pump the sail on the upwind to go over the waves and accelerate on the chop. We found that the most common mistake of the fleet is to heel the boat to windward too much. As soon as the wind goes down or the puff is gone, you must immediately move the weight in, and keep the boat flat or maybe with a little leewards heeling to accelerate. It is important to always have the shoulders further out than the butt, that way the upper body stays more active, specially in choppy conditions.
- Reach & downwind: we analyzed different ways to surf a wave, depending on the angle between our course and the direction of the waves. We also explained the technique to keep the boat plaining as much as possible, without loosing pressure on the rudder and sail. The movements of the body were many times not effective. Sailors were moving a lot, but at the wrong moment. It is important to slide back and forward, or to hike with the upper body in the “power zone” of the wave. This is the only way to take advantage of the surf. To do this, the legs and lower body must be as closet o the center of the boat as possible, so as not to heel to windward.
- One technical observation on the boat rigging for the reaches, is that the short hiking straps that come in the Winner boat are not good for small sailor. They end up Liking from the line and not from the strap.
- Tacks & Gybes: it is important to coordinate the 3 movements of body, mainsheet and rudder. And at the same time find the good spot between the waves to do the maneuver. On heavy wind, they need to learn the technique of going straight to the straps after the tack.
- Penalty Turns: sailors need to be faster when they trim their mainsheet. We found they were always late and the sails were luffing too much, and loosing power through the turns. ANother importsnt cvomment is the use of the centerboard to head down faster or to finish the turns with better speed.
After the long meeting, we went out and tried to do some tactical excercises. But the wind died down and we were not lucky. So we had to go back. In the afternoon we had a “free subject” meeting, where the sailors could make any question they wanted and we discussed a lot of interesting ideas.
3rd day – Starts & Upwind Tactics
We focused the third day on Tactics and Starts. We did a short briefing in the morning to explain the excercises and the goal for each of them. The morning was used to work on the upwind strategy, paying attention to the first windshift of the upwind, consolidate the crossing and final approach to the upwind mark. Important things were:
- find the first windshift of the upwind before the start. This is important to go to the favoured side immediately after the start, and get the advantage early on the race.
- after finding that first windshift, you must always try to consolidate that advantage by crossing the bows of the fleet. Every time you get a windshift in your favour, you must put the “money in the bank” by crossing the fleet.
- the last windshift of the upwind is a good chance to get last advantage over other sailors. The common mistakes when we approach the upwind mark are to get in dirty air and doing too many tacks. The best thing to do is actually to pick a side and sail the last windshift as a persistent shift, trying to get the best angles and more pressure.
To do all of these, it is extremely necessary to improve the pre-start work. This is not only to check the speed of the boat, but also to keep track of the windshifts and the angles for each tack. The only way to know which is the lifted tack when we start is by checking constantly during the sequence.
A big mistake we saw in these drills was that the fleet likes to sail too much over the laylines. That is bad in two ways: because you are sailing a longer distance and also because you have no more tactical options.
The afternoon was all about starts in a big fleet. And we were very disappointed with this practice. There is a lot to work on starts, but the first thing they need to change is the attitude. If every time we do start the sailors go over the line, then the practice is useless... you are not learning noting at all!! Sailors were not respecting the line, not focused on the drills and, in the end, most of the starts were quiet bad. This must change right now. Starting is definitely the most important part of a race, and that is why practicing starts is the most important of all the clinic.
Due to this bad attitude, we went back to shore and had a serious conversation with the kids, trying to get a better response for the last day.
4th day – Starting Techniques and Practice Races
The morning briefing was divided in two: first we went through the drills and excercises to do on the water, and then we watched the video from the day before.
The starting drills were focused specially on the technique. With the fleet divided in 3 groups, the sailors made 3 rotations to work on different aspects of the start, focused mostly on technique and boat handling. In the afternoon, we finished with 2 full trapezoid courses, as a warm up for the upcoming regatta on the weekend.
The first drill was focused on measuring the distance to the line. Sailors had to start sailing in close hauled 20 seconds before the gun, and had to be crossing the line exactly at 0 seconds. The important thing was to learn how to measure in seconds.... not in meters or boat lengths.... you need to know how many seconds away from the line you are, to make a good final approach.
The second drill was to practice the port tack approach in the last seconds, simulating a last minute decision to change the spot in the line. By approaching on port you sail against the fleet flow and have more chances to find a spot.
The third excercise was focused on holding the boat at the starting line without tacking in the last minute. This is important to hold the boat to boat position and defend your spot when you are surrounded by a big fleet.
The afternoon races were excellent to test the course and put together everything that we practiced during the clinic. The highlight of the day was that finally in the last start, we could see the whole fleet at the line, with a lot of precision showing great improvement on their approach and acceleration at the start.
From our side, we had a great time and very good experience. Everything worked out very good. We want to invite all Dutch sailors to come to any of our clinics and we will be happy to keep working with them throughout the year.
Bocha & Manny
Voor een korte impressie klik hier
