A small boat sailor steps into a different world.

Dedicated and focused practice can help you accomplish your goals.

Lessons learned in a fleet stacked with former Olympians and America’s Cup sailors.

Downwind can be your best time to pass boats and move up in the race. Here are some ideas to get you into the passing lane downwind.

Want to step up your game? Work to control the mental side of sailing and good things will follow.

one job you might aspire to is fill the role of tactician. Every boat with a crew of more than one must have a tactician or one person who is in charge of making decisions on where the boat gets placed on the race course and how. I can tell you with 100% certainty that decisionmaking by committee while racing does not work.

I could hear Coach Bissell muttering. “Come on now, let’s tack and get with the fleet”. “Let’s go now, no more to the right”. Eventually Patrick tacked but the damage was done. A deep finish in Race 1.

Why you want to avoid the lay line as much as possible.

One of the fastest ways to improve your racing tactics is by adhering the rule of thumb that says you should always sail the longest tack of a leg first. Windward or leeward legs are never perfectly square to the wind and so your first job is to figure out what leg will be the longest and start on that. By doing so you will have more time to take advantage of any shifts that might occur. If you sail the short leg first you will find yourself on the layline sooner and once that happens it is basically “game over” for any changes to gain. In fact you are likely to lose by being tacked on etc…

I’ve been sailing in San Diego for over 25 years on all sorts of boats, from Snipes to J/24s and Etchells so I’ve spent plenty of days on the South Bay and off Point Loma. Luckily for NOOD racers spring is the windiest time of year in San Diego and it’s the one season where we can experience the most variety in the winds in which we sail. We can get the classic sea breeze, but we also get more frontal-based winds driven by the fronts that come all the way down from the north, stop near Southern California, and then peter out.

Here we’ll discuss sailing the boat and making decisions on the fly while racing to improve your performance. In this article we are going to keep it simple and focus on upwind sailing. Changes here are more straightforward. Developing good downwind speed in more a matter of developing the right technique rather than boat set up and trim.

Sailboat racers through history have been reticent to use a coach. The standard model has been to use “time in the boat” to self-improve all the different skills that come into play in sailing and racing. This is likely because sailboat racing does not take place on a field or arena where a coach can walk around, observe all aspects of the competition easily and directly communicate with the players. The sailing coach needs to be on the water and is limited as to how close he or she can get to the competition.

I sometimes feel like a doctor talking to an ill patient calling me with a list of symptoms, asking me—without a proper examination, mind you—to diagnose the ailment and offer a cure. Most of the calls from my “patients” come Monday morning, right after a racing weekend. The calls go something like this, “We had great speed forward, but could not point with the rest of fleet,” or “I had tons of helm and could not keep the boat flat. I think my new sails are too full.”

After a vastly successful & enduring career in the sailmaking business, most of it with North Sails, Chris Snow now moves on to pursue new challenges.

Take good care of your sails and they will take good care of you. Since your sails won't last forever, but following these simple steps on how to fold, roll and store your sails, will ensure you will get the best possible racing life from them.