Maintaining your spars correctly will ensure longevity, and knowing how to repair them and having the tools and parts on hand will allow you to miss as little sailing as possible.
Maintaining your spars correctly will ensure longevity, and knowing how to repair them and having the tools and parts on hand will allow you to miss as little sailing as possible.
Having superb timing to the start line, great boat handling and effective defensive tactics are all part of the sequence leading up to the beginning of a race. Failure to execute any of the major components will result in a poor start. However even if perfectly done, it’s not guaranteed that your start will be successful.
It’s impressive how much one drill can reveal about a sailor's downwind technique, even at Olympic levels. This drill highlights rudder errors, sheeting mistakes and body position errors rapidly. It also provides a different, and great, sense of feel and connection with the boat. We recommend it for coaches as well.
Rarely, and for only short periods of time, can you experience a balanced helm during a 20+ knot downwind. Helm exists indefinitely; it’s just a matter of how much. As the wind increases, so does the factor of helm influenced by the center of effort vs the center of lateral resistance, heel angle and boat speeds.
Everything you need to know about VMG, course skew, wave skew, shifts and pressure for downwind sailing. Filmed at The Gorge.
This two part video looks at how to rig your vang in the most efficient way and how to mark it so that you can set it correctly at any time on the race course.
Mastering control of your boat while going backwards opens up many new opportunities on the start line, allowing you to reset or reposition yourself farther up the line.
Sailing downwind in Laser is an art. In big breeze, it’s survival. Some people make it look easy, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t working hard. The effort in balancing the boat is lessened if you understand what it wants to do.
Having proper marks on your outhaul will allow you to set your sail correctly in the heat of the moment. Here's how and why to mark it.
How and where to sit is key to being able to control your weight placement downwind. Here we look at various positions across all wind ranges.
Sailing is a sport where feel is very important. If you are doing something wrong, the boat feels bad. We come to recognize these feelings and associate them with corrections. Over time, our set of corrective activities can become so in tune, that you can sail the boat without ever getting a bad feeling.
The shoot up will cut your drift time down the line in half and allow you to remain in control when someone to leeward of you holds their spot. Practicing this manoeuvre will give you tons of control on the start line.
This method allows you to adjust the strap while having enough friction to hold it in place. Make sure to use an old line so that it provides as much friction as possible.
Using a shockcord on your outhaul helps take the slack out of the system while making it more responsive.
Having good controls is important as it takes one more variable out of your racing: they are strong and well built, they allow you to trim your sail correctly even when you are tired, they are always rigged the same – all of which provide psychological and mechanical advantages.
Very few sailors excel in light wind and choppy water. It is the most challenging condition because your sail and telltales aren’t always working. You must constantly anticipate changes in boat speeds and this never allows you to get comfortable.
It’s been said that going fast upwind in moderate and heavy air is all about fitness and energetic hiking. Laser […]
It's no secret that the majority of Laser sailors use cycling for hiking as a method of cross-training for the […]
Nothing is more frustrating than getting your mainsheet tangled in a manoeuvre. Most of the time there is no rhyme or reason. Here’s the secret to frustration free sailing shown in the video, along with some other small tips that may help.
In many conditions, we often see sailors with poor gust and/or lull response. In regards to hiking, particularly in gusts, there can be a tendency to “fight” the boat with hiking and often use too much steering to control power. We see heeling of the boat, pinching, corrective steers and other issues in gusts. These issues often lead to unnecessary strain on sailors and reduced speed and VMG.
