Why Hire a Sailing Coach?
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.
The self-improvement method works but it takes an inordinate amount of time. Consider how many days a year you get to sail and then how many hours of each of those days is spent in actual training or in competition. Add it up and it is not much. During competition, there are many things that must be done well simultaneously to even compete. Tune the rig, trim the sails, monitor wind direction, speed and location, monitor positions of the other competitors, etc. Do all that and you leave little time for self evaluation and coaching. Most self coaching occurs after the fact in debriefs, often hours after the actual competition when the memory might be less than clear.
Sailing is also a game in which it is easy to fool yourself about your performance. A boat that thinks it is doing tactics poorly might really be slow, doing tactics on a slow boat is very difficult. A boat that is consistently mid fleet and thinks it is slow might be getting consistently bad starts and actually have good boat speed. Or a boat that is slow might be thinking it is failing at tactics when more speed is needed.
Enter the coach. As an independent outside observer there to help the team, the coach sees the playing field with much more clarity that can be had while on the water competing. The coach’s clarity of vision delivered to the sailing team short circuits the self-improvement method getting results faster. If you are slow, that will be determined and a good coach will diagnose the issues and fix them. If you are getting bad starts a coach can determine that and help suggest different techniques to get more consistently good starts. All aspects of your game can more quickly be looked at and improved.
As someone who has not only coached but been coached by some of the best out there I am confident that an investment in 2-3 days of coaching can take years off your learning process and vault you to the next level. Consider that this cost is likely less than the purchase of a new sail for your boat and the advantage is very clear.
Please contact me for more information and to discuss your particular program. I look forward to hearing from you.