Winter sailing isn’t just good for highlighting how bad your circulation is and annoying your family, it has other benefits too
If you’re thinking about doing a Frostbite or Winter sailing series this year, and my poetry has failed to convince you (although this does seem unlikely), then perhaps Malcolm Gladwell might have more luck.
In his book Outliers, Gladwell describes how children of all backgrounds learn and improve at approximately the same rate during school term time. However, children from more disadvantaged backgrounds fall behind during the holidays – particularly the summer holidays – a phenomenon known as the “summer learning loss”.
The idea is that, where families with money and opportunity help their children to continue their learning and maintain their knowledge through things like museum visits, cultural holidays, access to a range of educational books and material, families without money (or, to some extent time, if they are having to work multiple jobs to keep their heads above water) are not able to provide this stimulating environment and so their children fall behind.
Like pretty much any study or claim these days, there are some that question these findings but, regardless of the rights and wrongs, it is probably fair to say that those that continue learning gain significantly on those that don’t.
And the same applies to sailing:
Those that sail competitively through the winter improve; those that don’t, don’t.
I saw this first-hand when I sailed a competitive frostbite series in Dublin. Not only does your racing continue to sharpen, especially as you’re racing against guys you don’t normally compete with in your own club, but things like your sailing fitness improve too.
It also helps with other things. Getting out of your comfort zone, and dealing with creating new routines for yourself, all help you to figure out what helps you perform well and what hinders you.
And sailing in cold, windy, wavy conditions certainly make those breezy summer days feel a lot easier.
So, if you want to get a headstart on the fleet for next season, then Frostbiting or Winter racing is the way to go.
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Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell
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