Recent "Speed and Smarts" news letter told the story of Dave Dellenbaugh's trip to the Lightning circuit and his preparation. And his practices...
Practice number two, after spinnaker handling, was STARTING.
How many of you practice starting?
He had an interesting system. Find or put out an anchored buoy to be the starting line and then set up to leeward and to the right of the buoy. Start your watch for ten minutes and try to be at the "line" in one minute and at full speed. A few seconds past the line, circle back and repeat at the next minute.
When you get that down pretty well, move your set up point closer and closer to the buoy to see how little distance and time you need to get up to full speed.
At the start you are closer to all you competition than any other time in the race.
Shouldn't you be at your fastest and best? Well, get out and practice.
Dave doesn't comment about the last race in the series, when he lost the lead....I may tell you about that next time.
I have 27 posts about starting, so I guess I think it is important.
ReplyDeleteProbably the best one is the April 14, 2011. Get that down. It will be the most help for going fast. All the other are important also, but slow off the line is bad unless y0u plan it so you can tack to port.
ReplyDeleteAn impressive share, I just given this onto a colleague who was doing a little analysis on this Rent a Yacht in Dubai
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