Sailing Training with Nick

The view from Elise's home in the marina Practicing sail trim upwind and tacks + cross-sheeting arrangement What a beautiful day for sailing... The team gathered at the St Francis for a well deserved lunch at...well, 4pm :) Nathan who had sailed in the Golden Gate midwinters joined us. These guys are the reason why I have a boat cover...

Waiting to do its deed...

All these wonderful photos are courtesy of Michiel.

On Saturday, Suzanne (trim), Eric (trim), Michiel (bow), Nat (helm) and Nick (coach/pit) went out training under the guidance of Nick. We went upwind and downwind, practiced sail trim and worked on boat speed as well as A LOT of tacks (cross-sheeting) and jibes, either free flying the kite (great drill for the trimmers, nathan and I did a lot of that when we practiced short-handed sailing back in 2008) for an entire downwind leg, or with the pole so that the bowman got a little excercise too..

It was a perfect sailing day - sunny, warm and anywhere between 13 to 18 knots of wind.

Some notes...'The E-27 needs to be sailed like the overgrown dinghy that she is' eg. pay attention to heel angle. We really noticed this - at some point Nick left the rail, not even completely and heel increased by not even 5 degrees but we lost 2 tenth of a knot.

My personal learning (from the coach) 'shut up and drive' - and it is VERY hard to me...well, for me at least...I still remembered that midwinter race when I did that and we smoked past half the fleet...finishing ahead of Great White.

From the coach!

"You guys did great on the free flying drill and Nat, you did a great job driving under the kite and through the gybes.  Hell, we only wrapped it once!"

And a useful tip for all racers (this is true of other boats too)

Remember, there are two ways to unwrap the kite: 

1)       If you wrap it around itself, just pull on the foot and it should eventually spin out.  Be ready to give it a big ease!

2)      If you wrap it around the headstay, GYBE THE BOAT IMMEDIATELY.  Be patient, it might take a few minutes, but by waiting and not pulling on everything you’ll save the kite.  Whatever you do, DO NOT EVER ease the halyard while the kite is wrapped.