It was a light wind race, force 1 to 2 and after a so-so start I was approaching the windward mark in third.

I tacked for the windward mark right on the layline, with the guy ahead of me coming across on port and clearing me by one to two boatlengths. He went past me and tacked right on my wind, giving me a problem – I was now in bad air meaning my approach to the windward mark would be slow, and my pointing was affected by him too (because of the bad air) so I may not quite lay the mark.

So I decided to do two quite quick tacks to clear my air and give myself a better approach. I tacked onto port, but so did he – which surprised me as I thought he would comfortably lay the mark.

I then tacked back onto starboard, and as my tacks were better than his we were now on collision course.

But before I had the chance to tell him to keep going, and that I would duck him, he tacked onto starboard as well. Right in my water. I couldn’t even luff up to avoid him and we had a gentle bump.

I only had the chance to say “Erm…” before he apologised and bore off to do his 720 – fair play to him. So far, so good.

Now, we were sailing a triangle course, and I had a good reach to round the wing mark in first. I was a little way down the second reach when I heard yelling from behind, and saw a group of four boats line abreast approaching the wing mark, having a frank and open discussion about who should have water from whom.

They got to the mark and all four boats were touching, the inside boat hitting the mark and the boat outside her, and each boat outside them touching the next.

Not one boat called a protest or did penalty turns. Not one.

This produced a number of thoughts (in this order):

1. What the…?
2. Why are we racing if boats don’t stick to the rules?
3. Do people think I’m a bit of a gobshite  because I call them on rules infringements and do turns when I infringe?

I suspect that the guy who did his turns for me at the windward mark did them partly because he is a good guy, and partly because he knew that I wouldn’t just pretend it had never happened.

I also know that the guys who didn’t do their turns at the wing mark are good people, but they knew that no-one would protest or even really mention the incident again. But I also think there is a chance that they weren’t 100% sure who was in the right, and they didn’t want to have what feels like an argument about a situation in which they were unsure of their own correctness.

The thing is, I don’t think that it is ok to say “I’m not sure who was in the right in this situation, so let’s just let it go”, which is essentially what happened here, for these reasons:

• It is unfair on all the other competitors. Some of the boats behind may have got a better result if the infringer(s) had done their penalty turns – possibly improving their finishing position in the series.
• There is no point in taking part in a competition if people don’t stick to the rules.
• People gradually take more risks and get themselves into bad situations because they realise that most times no-one is going to insist they take a penalty.
• People that do enforce the rules (like me) feel like the kid at school that’s always saying “ the teacher said we should…”, and no-one wants to be that kid.
• It can lead to more unnecessary aggression on the water – (I had an incident once where I hit a leeward mark (at an event, not a club race), I turned to the guy behind me and said, unprompted, “I hit that, I’m going to do my turns”. His response was “I know you did – so bloody do them”, followed 3 seconds later by “do your f*!%$!g turns”, followed 3 seconds later by the same comment. I couldn’t believe the level of aggression, especially as I had said I would do my penalty, but maybe he was just used to people not doing their penalties).

So what should be done? My own feeling is that none of the sailors I race against wants to cheat, so it isn’t a case of having to deal with people wilfully breaking the rules. In fact, I think they’d be horrified if someone were to suggest to them that that was what they were doing. It is more the case that they haven’t got a channel through which to deal with the situations that arise in a way that they don’t perceive to be

a)      more aggressive or confrontational than they would like

b)      confusing and /or unfathomable to someone who is essentially sailing for fun

Careful Now. Protesting (especially in club racing) can be a minefield.

I’ve come across a few articles which touch on this topic or topics close to it, and some of the ideas suggested are quite good. Here are my thoughts on what clubs might do to try and deal with this issue.

Send out a communication detailing a new approach to rules infringements on the water which explains:

• very clearly that protests are not an act of aggression, they are a means to resolving a differing of views.
• that the club wants to help sailors learn the intricacies of the rules better, and the new approach is a way of doing this.
• that a sailor will no longer be disqualified if they lose a protest. Instead their result will be penalised by 20%.
• that all protests will be dealt with in public, allowing anyone that wants to watch the protest system in action to be able to do so.

I would also add to these two more optional points:

• any incident witnessed by the race committee, rescue boats or other racers not directly involved in the incident, where neither protagonist does a penalty or protests, will be subject to a protest hearing.
• That the penalty for an infringement be reduced to a 360, rather than a 720

The purpose of these changes is to change the perception of the sailors involved:

First, take as much of the confrontation/aggression out of the situation as possible by presenting protests as what they are: a means of untangling a situation, of clarifying a difference of opinion. The person you are protesting isn’t going to get thrown out of the race (assuming they lose the protest), and there is a tacit understanding that it is not that they think they were definitely in the right, just that they are not certain they were in the wrong.

Second, by opening the protest up for people to watch, there is an element of education about the proceedings, as sailors get the chance to learn about the rules in action. Hopefully they’ll also see that there is nothing to be feared by protesting someone else.

It is a tricky thing to deal with, as the self-policing nature of sailing is open to abuse, but also to apathy. The longer-term problem with letting things go is that slowly but surely people begin to sense that more aggressive or more risky sailors gain an unfair advantage, and some of the fun goes out of the competition.

First published 30th April 2014

The post Why People Don’t Protest Each Other (and Why They Should) appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

In a study that has become quite well known since it was published, psychologist Alan Richardson showed that visualisation (or mental rehearsal as it is more commonly referred to now, as it is thought that using all the senses produces better results) can improve performance nearly as well as physical practice. Briefly, the study was as follows:

Three groups of basketball players were tested to see how much they could improve their free throws

• The first group would practice free throws for 20 minutes a day
• The second group would only visualise themselves making free throws
• The third group was not allowed to practice or use visualisation

The third group didn’t improve at all. However, the group that was practising for 20 minutes each day improved 24%, whilst the group using visualisation improved 23% – almost as much as the guys actually physically practising.  This was revolutionary stuff, and we now hear elite athletes talking about visualisation quite regularly as part of their preparation for big events.

How can normal sailors use mental rehearsal?

So what does it mean for lesser mortals, and particularly beginner sailors, club sailors and open circuit sailors? With time on the water at a premium, any improvements that can be made at times when it is not possible to actually go sailing can be crucial to improving performance on the water.

Mental rehearsal helps a lot in these circumstances. According to Mental and Physical Fitness for Sailing the key is to start building your mental rehearsal skills first, and gradually expand them. Once you have these skills (and it doesn’t take long to develop them to at least a basic level) you can start using them to improve a whole range of skills. Some possible uses for mental rehearsal include:

Technical skills

• Tacking
• Gybing
• Starting
• Hiking
• Wave technique

Psychological preparation

• Sailing at a new venue
• Sailing in big fleets
• Recovering from a mistake
• Becoming comfortable sailing at the front of the fleet

The list is long and varied, and once you’ve developed the skills you can use them in other areas of your life too.

Interestingly, a lot of us already kind of use mental rehearsal already. We think back over recent races, often replaying a mistake we have made, or a great move we used to gain a place. The important thing here is to make sure you use these replays positively. Going back over a mistake we have made only ‘rehearses’ that mistake, making it more likely to happen in the future. In order to improve using such a situation it is important to replay the lead up to the mistake, but to change the mistake itself. Instead, use mental rehearsal to imagine what you should have done to avoid the mistake, and replay that in your mind, as this will help you to avoid such mistakes in the future.

You can replay successful moments as much as you like – it will not only help ingrain these successes, but it also helps a lot with confidence and self-belief.

See these other posts for more help on using mental rehearsal to improve your sailing:

Mental Rehearsal and Visualisation for Sailing

Detatchment and mental imagery

First published December 2013

The post How to be a better sailor without getting wet appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.