ACE YOUR CLUB RACE
“Rather than planning a specific route, it may be more helpful to narrow down to one or two priorities”
One design fleets, committee boat starts, upwind starts, port hand roundings… in most racing books and articles these are a given. But for many, our regular racing is in a mixed fleet, off a fixed line, around pre-laid courses, at our local club venue...
THE CHALLENGES
If I want to sail a club race and get to the allotment on the same day, I’m not going to spend hours before the start doing practice beats, split tacks, to come up with the perfect first-leg strategy. I’m unlikely to find time to download a synoptic weather chart and use it to plan for likely changes, weather cues, thermal effects and so on. But in the minutes I have before the start, I do need a way to come up with some strategic priorities on which to base my decisions at the start and around the course; without these priorities I’ll be forced into
