Sailor's Mind

We all have limits to our on-the-water practice time, which combined with the number of things we need to practice puts pressure on us to build as many of our fundamental skills as possible off the water.

 Our decision making ability deteriorates as regattas progress. As we get tired, our brains begin to try to moderate energy use by settling for easy choices – “I’ll keep going this way until I get a more obvious sign.” Both the power to focus and control, and our stamina to keep at it can fail us.

Decision making quality can be as much about the quantity of your decisions as about the knowledge and wisdom you bring to bear. Keep making decisions all day and you may start to tire out and begin to opt for easy options and maintaining the status quo. Over use can wear out your decision making strength as surely as hiking can exhaust your quads and abs.

Yes, John may hit the line at full speed. Bill could possibly pinch me up at the line and leave me stalled. David has lots of room to leeward to accelerate without risk. But where am I?

I can see Scott heading for a mid-line start. The other David looks like he wants to play it safe and slide off to the right as soon as he gets a chance. But what am I doing?

Getting my head out of the boat is all well and good, but too much awareness and I become merely reactive. I’m trapped in the space between Bill’s Laser and mine. I’m caught by the few feet of difference between my possible start and John’s. I’m already sailing up the right side and trying to gauge the wind pressure on the left side where David will be. I’m not sailing my race!

The water was cold, although it didn’t numb my toes. It is so hard to push past the inertia to take that first sail of the spring. I was eager this year, but somehow the weather was always a few degrees too cold or the wind felt a bit stiff for a sail by myself in cold water.

I had dropped the Laser off at the club last week. Sunday the temps hit 60 and the wind forecast was 10 or less, great conditions for a first sail. Trouble was everything went up, the temp a few degrees and the wind about 5 to 8 more in the gusts. Since I was there, the decision was easier, a push off the sand and the season opened up before me.

A quick question, have you set your sailing goals for the season? Yeah, I know I talked about this back in February, but most of you haven’t done it yet have you?

I decided 30 years ago that I would be more productive if I learned to touch type. I never did practice the formal method. I just kept trying to use a few more fingers and got proficient enough to satisfy my urge. But I’m far from good. (I had to correct a word in that last sentence.)

This is the time of year to make a concerted effort to upgrade your rules knowledge. So I’d like to pass on a few ideas about how to make it easiest to understand and remember the details of the Racing Rules of Sailing.

Let’s be clear from the start, the boundary between our mind and our body is an imaginary line no more real than the line between my city and yours. When you think, your body has physical reactions. When you move, your brain changes.

In the world of work it is pretty universally acknowledged that focusing your energies on using your strengths and working around your weaknesses will increase the likelihood of success. But this doesn’t work as well if you’re striving to become a better Laser sailor.

If you’re a great at tacking, it’s hard to win races by doing 270 degree tacks when a jibe is called for, or to sit out heavy breezes waiting for your preferred moderate winds. Clearly in complex sports like sailing, where a single person has to manage a variety of tasks; those of us that want to improve will have to invest time in strengthening our weak areas.

If you’re a new sailor or over 35 (a Laser Master Sailor), who feels reluctant to sail in a heavy breeze, you’re not alone. Windy days are challenging for many of us.

Most of us recognize the more obvious reasons: slower reactions and lower energy reserves in some older or out-of-condition sailors; lack of experience, which leads to hesitations (“deadly” in a highly pressed, twitchy Laser); missteps in boat handling; and lack of instinctual reactions to the early-warning signs of impending loss of stability.