A couple of weeks ago I was sailing the 29er Mid-Winters (great debrief by Willie Mcbride) here in San Diego, crewing for JP Barnes, who is a Junior at San Diego Yacht Club and also a member at South Western Yacht Club. JP and I have sailed together in the past, so both of us feel pretty comfortable with each other. We were doing quite well in the regatta, showing good upwind and downwind speed, some decent tactical decisions, but we just couldn’t get off the starting line. It seemed like we’d find a good spot and things were looking just fine until about T minus 20 secs and then things would go pear shaped.
Starting is one of the most intense moments of a race and mostly in the hands of the skipper. Usually you can determine immediately if the boat next to you is either a wolf or a lamb (with various degrees of skill). I was determined to help JP turn from a lamb into a wolf and do it wolf style from now on. Ouhhhh, ouhhh, ouhhhhhhh!!!! (one of my most favorite Super Bowl ads, by the way)
On the starting line I like to have a lamb to leeward and a more or less sophisticated wolf to windward. The lamb will not push the line too hard and you can (usually) count on the skilled wolf not to jump the gun too early and keep his windward boat in check…. If everything works out right, you roll the lamb after 30 secs (opening a great gap to leeward) and pinch off the wolf after another minute or so (yes, I know, I’m being overly optimistic here…).
So how do you man-up? I haven’t really seen any good advice on this subject, but interestingly enough, it’s what usually makes the difference between average sailors and really good racers, especially for teenagers that are going through adolescence.
Here are my two cents on this subject.
- Some of us are born to be wolfs and some others need to work to be one. A wolf has a palpable aura of confidence surrounding him (or her) and you must learn to impose this aura on others (like on the starting line) and marking your territory with it.
- Practice obviously goes a long way. The more you practice, the more confidence you have to pull it off.
- Don’t let yourself get pushed around. Wolfs like to probe others to see how much resistance they will encounter. If you meet another wolf, don’t let him mark you as a submissive wolf - do not be his bitch. Push back, instead, and he'll think twice the next time.
- Make a distinct decision that you are going to be a wolf. Do you want to be eaten or do you want to eat? Tell yourself this as you’re getting ready to race.
Also, on a side note, being a wolf doesn’t mean being an arrogant SOB who doesn’t respect the rules. Don’t be that boat…
Hey Chris,
ReplyDeleteJudge and I just got back from sailing the CIMA regatta in France and we learned a lot I think, but with the regatta fresh in our minds we're still looking for more to take away. I just finished reading your article on Lambs and Wolves, and it was amazing how well it described an experience that we had in France. In the qualifying series we had awesome starts. We always had a line sight and we always started a boat length or 2 ahead of the fleet in the middle of the line by taking advantage of line sag. Once we got into the final series though, everyone pushed the line. We got smoked on the line in our first 2 starts of the series, and decided that we needed to make a change. Rather than try to be "on the line" we were going to try to "beat all of the boats around us" more of a kill-or-be-killed mentality. We set up at 1:30 and made sure that in the last 30 seconds we were always doing everything we could to close the gap to windward, regulate the size of our hole to leward, and generally give ourselves enough space to accelerate and crush everyone around us. We got awesome starts for the rest of the regatta.
in general, the qualifying series of the regatta seemed a lot like racing in the us - at any given time there are about 6-10 boats that could win the race, and since there are so few, they generally tend to stick together more, making it easier to cover them all if you're in the lead. Once you get to the final series however, the top 12-20 boats could win the race at any time, and this is where Judge and I need a lot of work. We qualified 4th, and finished 11th, using both throw outs in the final series and only sailing 1 race in the top ten once it started. I don't think we hit a wall or anything, the thing is, we're not used to sailing in deep fleets, and I believe that the style of sailing changes dramatically when everyone is a contender. Rather than fleet managing the 6 boats around you, you suddenly have to worry about the boats who are 7th place-12th place on the other side of the course. Neither Judge nor I have ever finished an international regatta in a better position than we qualified, so I'm looking for any advice I can on how to improve my "deep fleet racing" skills. Any thoughts you have would be awesome. I really like all of the articles on the blog, and thought you might have some thoughts on this. Thanks a lot,
Willie