Best Way To Start A Race?

I was just wondering what everyone else did to practice starts for races, or if there are any special techniques that you use to start a race, and get out ahead fist?

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http://www.GetWetSailing.com It's A Great Day To Sail!

The toughest skill to learn is boat control - staying in one place for 45+ seconds, then pulling the trigger - hitting the line at time 0 w/speed. Practice with a small buoy like a crab pot to give you a reference point in the water.

Get a good line sight (identify a point on shore beyond the pin end of the line when sighted from the committee boat end through the pin).

Learn how to identify the favored end of the line. You don't have to start on that end, but you should start near that end.

Pick out a cream-puff (less experienced sailor) to start next to. If you can't identify the cream-puff, you ARE the cream-puff

Have a strategy for the first leg - which side of the course you want to be on, how you're going to get there - watch the wind on the water upwind of the starting line, about halfway up the course at 4 minutes to go - that's the wind you'll be sailing in at the start.

Clean air, clean air, clean air. If you get buried, bail out ASAP. Jibe if you have to. Get clean air.

Damn it!!


Matt- being that you regularly sail uni, and sloop boats. Which do you think is easier to park out with? I've had a tough time with sloops in the past getting them to sit in one spot. Where as with my boat I can make it do damn near whatever I want parked. Last time I sailed a sloop though, I didn't realize how quickly you could force a boat head to wind and get it to stop just by sheeting hard. Or being able to tack while not moving doing this.

I'm always the cream puff. Starts are the hardest. Trust me, you can kill alot of time when you run into the committee boat at the start of a race.

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I wish winter was not so long in Sask. Canada. It's hard to sail on ice! 1984 16' hobie cat Sail# 84848

The 14 is probably the hardest to sit still with, followed by the 17 - the uni rigs. They're hard to get out of irons; you can't be shy about jumping to the leeward side, pushing out the boom and backing out of it. The real danger is in being to close proximity to someone who "loses it" at the last second and can't get going. This really hurts when they're right to leeward of you - you want to head off to get going and you can't.

With the unis, you can't ever really stop completely - you need some flow over the rudders to steer.

Sloop rigs are easy - you can have the crew backwind the jib to get you out of irons. The extra set of hands really helps.

On any boat, you can't just sheet in and go. The boat has to be pointed in the right direction before you sheet / travel in. I like to have the main sheet just a little loose and the traveller all the way out as I approach the line. I'll creep up to the line, burning off time, constantly gauging how far away from the line I am (in seconds). It takes a lot of practice to be able to do that with any kind of accuracy. When the countdown = my gauge time, I pull the trigger and go. I use a watch with sound signals so neither I nor my crew needs to look at a watch to know how much time is left in the last minute.

Pulling the trigger - head down hard (you've got to have room to do this - protecting room to leeward is an art) and reel the traveller / sheets in - jib first to help the bear away. You're already hooked up, so as the boat powers up, you can jump out on the wire.

And try not to OCS,those letters on your score card hurt a lot.I know because I am usually good for one per regatta.Mind you it does feel nice being out front for a while.

2008 Hobie 14 Nationals in Clear Lake, Iowa, twice I get a mediocre start in the middle of the pack, getting clobbered with dirty air, tack away, end up first around A mark, lol. There is nothing more exquisite that seeing and hearing people like Matt Bounds, Bill Jeffers and other top flite 14 sailors asking, "WhoTheF** is that in the lead?; I think it's Mork; No effing way!!, lol." Of course with my meager sailing skills, I would eventually get caught by these same guys. The point of the story is that clean air, as long as you're not going in the wrong direction, can propel you to the front of the pack.