He is a great crew 'boss' also making the team work efficiently on the boat, paying attention to a lot of detail.
Between these two aspects, and since Scott started to spend some time on Elise, I have become a much much better driver - and in particular in light air. Light air sailing has always been my Achille's Heel for three main reasons.
1) I have done very little of it comparatively speaking - in Southern England and the Atlantic, it was much more likely to get plenty of wind than no wind...so I lack practice (yes yes I know, I get this every year in winter in the Bay Area...still)
2) what I enjoy most in sailing, particularly in racing is driving the boat FAST. Light air sailing is like watching a movie in slow motion...Even though you are fabulously focused and keep making tiny adjustments, fast is not how I would characterize the day. So it is the least enjoyable aspect of sailing/racing from my perspective.
3) I lose focus - things are so slow, and so not enjoyable that it is really hard for me to keep the focus required to make things work. And don't get me wrong. I can maintain a lot of focus for a lot of time in really tricky conditions with a lot of wind...so it is not lack of concentration. Just that with a lot of wind, I will be having a ton of fun...even if it is really tough to sail. So my mind will naturally focus and concentrate.
And to be frank, every single thing you do in light air gives you a 70% improvement or 70% loss, given how slow you are to begin with...so heavy air, despite the fact that a lot of people think it is the hardest thing in the world is actually much more forgiving...You kind of sheet in hard, get a groove, don't move the tiller too much, foot off a bit up a wave, adjust your main in a gust and just kind of go. Weight on the rail is probably just as important as my ability to drive...
In light air, not making any adjustment will kill you in a race. Not paying attention is a ticket to the bottom of the fleet.
I don't want to belittle heavy air sailing (and when it really really blows, and even three reefs and a storm jib isn't enough, it gets into storm management which is the other extreme) - anything between the super dead air, like up to 6-7 knots and up to 45 knots, I prefer and I am much much better - with a boat like Elise - in the 15 / 45 knot range, comparatively speaking. I am not great there either, just much better. At this kind of wind speed, I just feel tuned in with the boat. I sense when she wants to take on, when we are putting the brake on her, pulling on the rein like overtrimming a spinnaker - I understand her. And she rewards me for it. It is just a blast no matter what.
But Saturday conditions weren't like that at all...The wind oscillated between 2 and 6 knots for us on the course - basically the conditions I am the worst at - and not by a small margin...
Yet, it was the first light air day that I actually truly enjoyed. - and don't get me wrong. I have never not enjoyed a day in the water. However light air days were typically more like 'oh so cool to be out there, nice break' or 'interesting learning' - there always were aspects I liked and then there was 'too bad there was no wind'.
Saturday stood out.
Debriefing with Scott.
1- Great separation of jobs on the boat leading to increased focus on each person. The driver who also happens to be the main trimmer and the trimmer focusing on boat speed and working as a team, the tactician focusing on where the boat should be on the course, etc...and focusing on getting best conditions for boat speed like clean air, fastest path to the marks, etc...and the foredeck person who also did mast given the light air conditions who focused on the rounding maneuvers, sail changes, etc... to make them FAST. A bad rounding is like a bad start, except worse.
2- I was so focused, my head hurt at the end of the race. I don't even know which course we went around and when the fog set in and we were about to head home, I didn't know which way home was...I was completely disoriented. I only remember the boats sailing close to us at some point and nothing else...and focusing on marks when they were pointed out to me. The entire time, I was listening to two people constantly. One was Mark (pressure, no pressure, etc...) and the other one was Elise. Occasionally there would be a tactical call 'let's tack now' or 'I want you to maximize vmg downwind, don't worry about the mark' or some episodic command but that was it. Everything else was a blur.
3- Mark (trim) and I were like two fingers of the same hand, working in sync, constantly talking to each other. Mark was also the only person I talked to during the entire race except to give indications to the tactician that might help him make decisions like 'wind velocity down 2 knots', '10 degree header' because I had to compute the information anyhow and make an adjustment myself to re-optimize boat speed for these new conditions. Small adjustments on the main (and sometimes jib) were constant. The air was so light that I just trim with my hands right on the line directly connected to the boom. A 1:1 ratio with the sail. Every bit of pressure change I could feel immediately. - and frankly at times, I could have driven the boat with my eyes closed. (since Nathan was looking out for where we were going)
4-we had very very active weight management going on and based on data (speedo) or feeling ('feels slow'), etc..Both Mark and Mike are worth a quarter of a knot when you go from 4 knots to 6 knots and they move from the leeward side to the middle of the boat. Between 6 and 7, Mark first on the high side and Mike behind the mast gave us another quarter of a knot. Crazy stuff like that. But given the speed of the boat, they were HUGE percentage improvements in boat speed.
5- get clean air - at the leeward mark, we pointed high and slow to get clean air one time as we rounded at the same time as another boat. It was the only time we 'sacrificed' on boat speed - just to keep that boat speed the rest of the leg.
6- most importantly, patience. I had Scott's voice playing in a non stop loop in my head the entire team. 'gain boat speed first, then point'. Shifting the entire focus on boat speed helped us point, as with more apparent wind velocity that came with boat speed, we were just able to point. And not having to worry about point at all freed up a lot of mental resources. And Mark is a fantastic trimmer - that helped quite a bit...he just has such a wonderful feel for the headsail. I have so much to learn from him - and downwind, he is also fantastic, although in light air, the main did contribute quite a bit to boat speed as sometimes I'd make a change and he wouldn't, and the boat would take off.
Now, that's on the driving/trimming side.
We also had a fantastic tactician. Spotted wind shifts, wind holes, wind corridors, etc...and just took the boat where she needed to be. We picked up half the fleet that way. This was a fabulous job. I didn't see any of it as I was so focused but it clearly wasn't boat speed that did this ;-)
And other than race-related dialogue, the boat was entirely silent. It was actually the only way I could concentrate. Chatter would have been hugely distracting. Nathan was totally in tune with the wind and completely present in the race course.
Mike did a great job on the foredeck, with two Mexican douses and was just completely switched on weight wise, moving slowly around, and fore and aft.
We also had a bad start, overstood a windward mark, were pointing too high and slow after the start so took us a while to dial in, I reacted too slow to a tactician command once and we tacked too early on the way to the last windward mark...So plenty of things we can improve on...
I did say at some point 'oh boy, light air is so difficult...'
Scott, my teacher really likes light air because of that concentration, because of these constants adjustments.
I liked that light air day because it was all about listening to the boat - and this is why I like small boats so much. You have a much more direct connection with the elements. Elise is so light than she responds very quickly to any adjustment, so she is a great teacher. Everyone on the boat was listening to her, actively listening to her - both intuitively ('it feels fast', 'this feels worse', etc..) and objectively ('we gained half a knot, I am leaving that main right where it is'). And Nathan (whose job it was!) was not, he was entirely focused on the universe around Elise, steering her to the best possible spot.
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