Around the middle of last year I lost my watch.

Actually, to be honest, I dropped my watch over the side of my boat. This raises several questions (not least of which is what the bloody hell was I doing?), but the first question that occurred to me was – why don’t sailing watches float?

But these questions are for another day. What is important for now is that I decided to delay getting a new one. The reason was not expense, as you can get a pretty good new watch relatively cheaply. The reason was tactical (kind of).

I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where so I could post a link) that it is worth learning to start without a watch, and instead start on the behaviour of the sailors around you.

The idea is that you focus on positioning yourself well compared to the boats around you, and start accelerating when they do. If you are over, then they are too. If they are on time then you are too. And, if you get it right, then you get a better start than those around you, meaning you get a good lane and therefore a good start.

It will surprise you, because it is so out of character for me, that this idea was spectacularly badly thought through.

The problem was that I was doing this for club racing, in a mixed fleet, with very mixed abilities. So, barring a handful of sailors, you don’t tend to be lining up as you would at a championship. This means that there isn’t the trigger-pull moment that you can work with a few seconds before the gun goes.

That is my excuse for my bad start. And I’m sticking with it. And I bought a new watch.

So after a bad start I managed to round the top mark in fifth. I picked up a spot on the run and was approaching the leeward mark right on third-place’s heels. It was going to be tight, but I didn’t think I would be able to definitively establish an overlap by the three-boat-length circle, so I moved to the outside transom corner as we made our approach. I tried to hold the boat ahead reasonably tight for their entry, before bearing away to give myself a nice wide entry, and a tight exit. And I managed to execute a really good rounding, while the boat ahead exited wide, off my lee bow. When he tacked I was forced to tack on his lee bow (he was too close to duck), but I was still in a strong position. I pinched and sailed as flat and quick as possible, and soon was clear ahead and up a place.

But what should the boat that I overtook have done?

If it was me, and the boat behind was keeping me quite tight in the approach to the mark, I would have slowed down a tiny bit. A slower boat will turn much tighter than a quick moving boat, enabling a tighter, if slower, exit. But it would also have forced the boat behind to go around the outside and be in a weak position, probably in my bad air. You must still make a “seamanlike” rounding, but a smooth, tight (albeit slow-ish) rounding is still seamanlike. It is a fine line, but it is also proof that practising leeward mark roundings is essential, as it can gain or save you places. Starting a beat in a controlling position will generally result in a good beat.

Funnily enough, a similar situation happened at the next leeward mark. The boat in second made a poor leeward mark rounding, and as I followed round I made a good turn and again gained a place. This time I hadn’t been close enough to really influence the boat ahead’s rounding, but the result was the same. Two places in one race from leeward mark roundings.

So my obsession with leeward mark roundings pays off every now and then.

The post When Obsession Pays Off appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

If you missed the first two parts of this review of the Cong Galway Race 2021, you can find them here and here.

After an all-too-short lunch, we all launched again ready for the second leg. As I headed back to the boat I noticed the Irish Language news crew were on the pier, and they covered the race on their news bulletin that day.

I was making headline news as usual.

The start for the second and final leg was a reaching start straight toward a narrow-ish gate. between a big rock/island and the shore, It was a bit of a judgement call as to where to start – the windward end was obviously appealing, but I felt it could easily turn into a bit of a battle, and only the winner would leave with clear air. Also, the angle of the line meant that the reach from the top end of the line to the gate would be quite broad, and a start from lower down the line would provide a quicker sailing angle for my Laser.

Having decided all this, I got my transits and aimed to start as high up the line as I could without being in the shadow of the boats duking it out to win the end. And, as much by good luck as good management, I timed it well and, as we raced down towards the first gate, I realised I was leading the monohulls – even ahead of those speedy Fireballs.

A picture of me actually ahead of the Fireballs (for a while, anyway)

Just as I was starting to imagine myself explaining my starting tactics to the sailing press, and how word would spread to the SailGP teams that I was a master tactician, and how the America’s Cup teams would then be vying for my signature, I noticed my hand was feeling a bit funny. I thought there was some problem with my glove, until I realised that my left hand was cramping up from all the sheeting. Not good news two minutes in to a 2-hour+ leg.

A bit of stretching on the deck helped ease it, and I would continue to have to do it for the remainder of the leg, but I am a brave little soldier so I carried on.

I kept the Fireballs behind me for a bit, but they eventually got past, and from then on my aim was to keep as many monohulls behind me as possible. As we wound our way down the narrow channel to the Lower Lake this was reasonably straightforward, but once the water opened out it became a little harder. The classic problem of the breeze coming down the racecourse when on a run was bound to happen, and this (coupled with the fact that the guys behind me were better sailors than me…) meant that a handful of boats closed the gap.

Rob and Rían caught me in their 420 and decided to try and roll me. But, as they had a spinnaker, I decided that a severe luff would probably be enough to put them off. Luffing matches aren’t much use to anyone in a PY race, so eventually we agreed that they’d go low and I wouldn’t go down enough to steal their wind should they get past me. It meant at least we could both keep sailing fast in clear air, and it wouldn’t damage our overall times too much.

By this stage I was now cramping in both legs as well as in my left hand – a sign that Lasers are essentially torture machines, that my fitness needs a bit of work, and that I probably hadn’t drunk enough water.

Thankfully we were heading into the last part of the race, down the River Corrib and into the heart of Galway City. This was a real test of temperament, as the tree-lined shore cut out most of the falling wind, and zephyrs of breeze could see boats steaming ahead, only to stop dead and have other boats catch them straight back up again.

My gravel pit sailing experience, coupled with my time sailing on the Norfolk Broads should have given me a bit of help here but, truth be told, I probably lost more time than I gained on the guys around me. By this stage though, I wasn’t too worried, as I was just pleased to be finishing in what I felt would be a respectable enough position. I was sure I would be in the top half of the fleet, and might even scrape in to the top 10, but it was just impossible to judge over such a long race.

After the finish, which had a small crowd of Galwegians cheering us in, and at which I beat the other Laser by exactly 3 seconds after a two-and-a-quarter hour leg, we had to capsize to get under the main road bridge over the Corrib.

As I was drifting under the bridge I saw my family on the bank of the river – still talking to each other, which was good to see. They met me at the slipway with my trolley, and the first thing they said, to greet me after my 30 nautical mile journey was:

“What the hell is going on with your face?”

With the rush to get launched, I had hurriedly put some sun cream on before leaving. I then forgot all about it – never topping it up at any point. My face was bright red, and would take days to recover.

There was a gathering for food an drink whilst the results were calculated, and the first pint of beer was unbelievably delicious – it hardly touched the sides going down. After chatting with a few sailors – all of whom asked why my face was glowing – I noticed the kids were getting a bit restless. It had been a long day for them too, so we decided to hit the road for home.

On the drive, my phone started pinging with messages from sailors from my club. Rob and Rian had only gone and won the whole event – a massive achievement. And I had snuck in to third place! Much, much better than I had hoped for.

I was sorry I hadn’t waited for the prize giving.

The prize for first place was a trophy and a night in Ashford Castle – a five-star hotel.

The prize for third place? A mug for my tea. I can tell you that, whilst I was a basking in the glory of my third place, my wife was pretty grumpy that I hadn’t sailed a little bit faster and won a night of luxury mixing it with the rich and famous.

Maybe next time.

Results

Someone else did a write-up of the event (which is a lot better than mine…) here. And it includes this YouTube collection of pictures from the day:

The post The Cong to Galway Race 2021 – The Final Leg appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

If you haven’t read part one about the Cong to Galway Race 2021, then I recommend you give it a read before starting this part.

As I sailed out to the start line a few things began occurring to me that I probably should have thought about before. I had been so caught up in the logistics of the event that I hadn’t paid much attention to the race itself. A cursory read-through of the sailing instructions meant I knew the basics, but I realised I hadn’t looked up which flag was the class flag and, whilst I could figure out the start line and first mark, after that I didn’t really know where I was going.

Of course, in the build up I hadn’t worried too much about that as I knew there would be catamarans and Fireballs and other fast boats that would leading the way, but I now realised that knowing the rough direction that I should be heading was not all that helpful when trying to make decisions about the best way to get there:

• How do you know which side of the run you should aim for if you don’t know exactly where the next mark is?
• Are the cats going to zigzag downwind as I would expect, or will they sail dead downwind as some were discussing before we launched?
• Would the Fireballs sail at a broad reach angle or are they quicker to just look for puffs and soak as low as possible?

What I did know was that the keelboats were due to start before us, so I checked out the line bias (pin end favoured), the course bias (more breeze on the right), got a couple of transits, and tried to make sense of the flags as there was definitely action on the committee boat.

I sailed about checking tactical compass readings and sail set-up for the short first beat, then sailed back towards the line only to notice that there was a Preparatory flag up. For the second time.

Hmmm.

And the Class Flag was definitely different from the last time.

Hmmmm.

As Rob and Rían (from my club) sailed past me in their 420 looking fairly serious about things I decided I should probably ask if we were about to start.

We were, in about 3 minutes.

Ooof.

Rían, being the gentleman he is, gave me a quick count so I could set my watch, but it is tricky to do in a hurry so I only had a rough idea as to when the gun would go. I got into position and went as well as I could but my start was only so-so. There was a short beat to the windward mark and then we set off on the race proper bearing away to the south to run down the lake before rounding an island and heading south east on a beam to broad reach.

The first half of this leg was pretty much a drag race, and the fact that the first portion was a dead run suited the monohulls a lot better than the cats. As we turned from the run to the reach the Fireballs had smoked off into the lead, and I was still right up with, and even ahead of, a good portion of the catamaran fleet. I had no idea what the PY differences were, but I knew that it meant they had a bit of work to do to get ahead on corrected time.

Most of these thoughts were fairly fleeting, though, because it was impossible to avoid being distracted by the surroundings. Living so close to Lough Corrib I had been on the lake several times before, but it is always breath-taking, and it is really something special to be sailing in a fleet of 40 boats in perfect conditions.

As the first leg went on some of the physical challenges became more apparent. Ninety percent or more of the first leg of the race was going to be sailed on one tack and, whilst there was very little close hauled hiking, there was a fair amount of reaching hiking, and a lot of in-and-out, fore-and-aft shifting to keep the boat planing as much as possible in the marginal conditions. Wind shadows and wind bends, thanks to the scattered islands and trees on the shoreline, meant there was little rest, and my legs and arms were starting to tire well before the end of the one-and-three-quarter hours it took to complete the first section.

And close competition also kept the pressure on. Had I had any idea about the various PYs of the other boats (which thankfully I didn’t), I would have lost any sense of the overall timing within the first 20 minutes anyway – it is simply impossible to know how you are doing with such a spread of relative speeds. Instead I had a decent battle with a very fast RS200, a 420 and another Laser who was keeping me honest.

We all tied up on a well-sheltered pier and I tried to behave as though I was fine despite my hip-flexors, quads and forearms all feeling the pain. And we were only half way there…

The post Cong to Galway Race 2021 – The First Leg appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

I would prefer not to answer that question and, to be honest, I think it is pretty rude of you to bring it up.

We’re so lucky these days to have great coaches available to us 24/7, with videos about pretty much any issue you can imagine.

Steve Hunt is one of these guys, and his stuff is always worth watching.

This is another great one with loads of fantastic tips and advice. But, as he often does, he throws in some real gems, almost as an aside. Take this little pearl (starting at 4min 25sec):

I have never come across this advice, and never thought of it myself. I suspect it works better in the top half of the fleet – sometimes the bottom half aren’t as observant, and tack into bad lanes – there’s not much you can do about that.

But, generally speaking, this is a really useful idea when looking for a good lane, especially when you are trying to come back from a poor start, or looking to work your way up the fleet in a crowded, mid-fleet position.

Of course, the rest of the video has some good advice too. Key points he makes are:

• Do not tack and do huge ducks. Small ducks of first row boats is ok, but big ducks of second or third row boats is not.
• Find the seam – find a spot where you’re on someone’s hip with no lee bow and sail fast for a little bit. Other boats will start to fall behind as they sit in worse spots or tack too much to get out of bad spots. Then you can “look around for more wind and sail towards the mark”.
• Use the boats ahead as wind indicators – a lot of us know we should do this, but how many actually do? I like his arrow idea – worth a try, especially for the more visual learners among us.
• Go straight at the top mark to clear the bad air, then engage your strategy for the leg (unless there is a good reason to do otherwise).

The post How To Keep a Good Lane Using the Boats Ahead appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

“There’s a spider in our bedroom!” She announced, looking at me.

I stood up purposefully and prepared to stride upstairs manfully and deal with the situation, when a house-mate spoke up.

“I wonder how he got there.” He mused.

“He probably just went up the stairs.” Someone suggested.

“Couldn’t have. Spiders can’t climb stairs.” My house-mate pointed out.

This stopped us all in our tracks. Spiders can’t climb stairs? My house-mate stuck to his guns for a good five minutes before it became apparent what had happened. When he was a kid he’d been afraid of spiders, and the thought of them being in his room had kept him awake. So his parents had told him that he didn’t need to worry – spiders couldn’t climb stairs.

And he’d never had occasion to question the belief, so he’d made it into his early twenties quietly believing that spiders can’t climb stairs.

An artists impression of some spiders climbing stairs

“But what has this got to do with sailing?” I hear you ask.

Well, I was getting to that before you so rudely interrupted me.

You see, when I learnt to sail as a kid I was told that daggerboards were necessary to stop the boat slipping sideways due to the force of the wind. Which is true. But the impression I was given was that they were essentially a blocker (which is also true in part), but I never knew that they were designed to create lift too.

Anyway, when I was a young Optimist sailor, I kept my boat and foils as perfect as possible for two reasons. The first was that everyone else did, so it seemed important. The second was that, psychologically, I felt at a disadvantage if my boat had scratches – far more of a disadvantage than I think would be remotely realistic. So to avoid this psychological speed-bump I kept the hull and foils in good shape.

But when I returned to sailing in my early thirties I was a) determined to avoid these weird psychological pitfalls that I’d had as a teenager; and b) not looking to sail in national competitions for at least a couple of years, so I was less fussy about my equipment.

On the day I went to buy my Laser I had two key things in mind:

1. Buy a Laser with the XD kit – a friend had told me that I’d regret it otherwise; and
2. Negotiate the price. The reason for this was that I had virtually no idea how much any given Laser should cost, so I figured if I negotiated a bit off the price then I probably wouldn’t be paying an excessive amount for my boat.

The guy I bought my Laser off is one of the best guys you could hope to meet. But I didn’t know this at the time. Nor did I know that he was selling the boat for a very reasonable price, and I should have bitten his arm off straight away.

Instead I looked the boat over, checked it had an XD kit, and then asked him how much he wanted for the boat.

He told me the price.

I had practiced for this moment. I sighed, I shrugged my shoulders, and then I pointed to the daggerboard.

“The board’s not in great shape. I’ll probably have to fix it or replace it, to be honest.” I’m rubbish at negotiating in these situations, but he very generously reduced the price by 50 euro. i didn’t have the stomach for any more negotiation, so I gave him the cash and had myself a Laser.

What I didn’t know was that he had sold me a really good boat for a song, and I’d had the cheek to negotiate. I still feel bad about it now.

Anyway, needless to say given my boat-maintenance skills, I never did fix the daggerboard. but as I started reading about sailing and chatting to people I came to get the notion that the daggerboard was rather more than a block of wood to shove into the water to stop the boat going sideways. This notion came to a head when I attended a talk by a top sailor. As part of the talk he got to talking about foils. And he reckoned that a small chip out of a daggerboard could cost you around 100 yards in an average race.

What! 100 yards!

My daggerboard had a bulbous lump near the leading edge where someone had made an ill-advised attempt at a repair – something that I imagine went a little like this:

This lump was rough and uneven, with little chips or dinks where it had set poorly. The back age of the board was jagged, with chips missing where the previous owner had apparently narrowly escaped a violent shark attack. When I added up all the 100 yards I was losing per chip I reckoned I should be winning races by a couple of kilometers.

So when my birthday came around that year I asked for a new daggerboard.

Actually, I asked for a new boat. When my wife had finished laughing and composed herself, I then asked for a new daggerboard.

And when I used it I won, beating a friend who had come fifth in the Irish Laser Masters, and who would finish second in the next Irish Masters. Admittedly the conditions suited me, but it certainly hadn’t slowed me down.

Funnily enough, I think it psychologically helped me (even though I’m supposed to be trying to avoid all that stuff), because I’d been told that having a top quality daggerboard would noticeably help me. And so had my club competitors, so some of them thought I’d be faster with the new plate too.

I think what what we can all take from this is:

• Always think about what you think you know, because you might be working on a misconception;
• Don’t under-estimate the effect that the right bit of new kit can have on you and your competitors;
• Spiders can go up stairs (apologies to any arachnophobes that didn’t want to know this); and
• Never believe what your parents tell you.

Now, I’m off to tell the kids that if they don’t go straight to sleep tonight their ears will fall off.

Oh, and if anyone wants to volunteer to fix my old blade then here’s a video to help you:

This post was originally published Dec 8th 2014, and has been updated.

The post Spiders Can’t Climb Stairs appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

However.

I do wonder if this guy knows what a bad start is. I mean, sure, being in 35th one third of the way up the first beat isn’t a good start. But I have had starts where I’ve been upside down when the gun goes. Or where someone has their mainsheet wrapped around my wind indicator. Or where I’m trapped outside the pin end, in irons, and half full of water.

Or where I’ve been upside down when the gun goes, right the boat only for someone to get their mainsheet wrapped around my wind indicator, then get trapped outside the pin end, in irons and half full of water.

OK,, so that last one has happened yet, but it really just feels like a matter of time…

So having someone steal my gap with 8 seconds to go, and being in a bad lane with few options, is more like a normal start, or an average start, or a could-be-worse start.

For me, anyway.

But maybe that’s why I’m not a 2-time World Champion.

Anyway, back to the video:

What are the key things we can learn from it?

• Don’t get a bad start – protect your gap, have good transits, pull the trigger effectively
• Cross when you can, don’t let others cross you
• Tack ahead and to leeward heading back to the middle
• Wait for the right moment to tack – follow the above rules, and have a gap to leeward
• Treat the last shift of the beat as a persistent shift
• Avoid the cone of silence
• Look for clear air
• Don’t sail too much unnecessary distance
• Downwind gains are often realised at the end of the leg – be patient

He also has a set of Golden Rules that he gives at the end:

• Prioritise Clear Air
• Patience – patience beats panic
• Stick to the basics

Stick to all that and you might get back from your could-be-worse start. You never know – it might even help you recover from an actual bad start.

The post Recovering From An It-Could-be-Worse Start appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

The video below is interesting to me because it backs up some of the things I learned from sailing with an excellent crew, and it also reminds me of some other sailing wisdom.

As those that have read this site before will know, I grew up sailing on lakes and, for this reason, reading shifts is very natural to me. But I noticed that I struggled at big events sailed on large bodies of water, where boat speed and strategy play a much bigger role in how well you do in a race.

On a lake, being good at picking the shifts can get you out of a lot of trouble, but sailing on the sea you can end up tacking way too much, and sailing with your head only focused on the area near you, and not looking at the bigger, whole-course picture. Or, you can end up sailing to the unfavoured side of the course waiting for a shift.

But the other thing this video reminds me about is that you need to keep your head out of the boat. It is one of the biggest cliches, but it is so true. You need to be looking ahead, making (hopefully good) predictions, and adjusting your strategy and tactics as necessary. And the only way to get good at this is to practice.

If you’re not used to doing this, or think you’re no good at it, the best thing to get in the habit of having a guess.

• Guess what shift you think it will be.
• Practice counting it down to the boat.
• Practice preparing for it to hit, and reacting correctly to it when it does.

This is a useful follow up video series to give you an idea of some exercises you can do to practice improving this skill:

Olympian Will Ryan On Reading Wind Shifts

The post Reading Shifts and Puffs (Olympic-Legend-Style) appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

As luck would have it, another club member overheard the conversation and offered to be my crew. This was both excellent news and terrible news. The guy in question had won a world championship as a crew in a two-man spinnaker boat. I was going to have an excellent team mate, but I was also going to have no excuses for doing badly. And I like having excuses.

We only got the offer a couple of weeks before the event, meaning that we wouldn’t get the chance to sail together until the actual event – not ideal preparation. He sent me a description of our roles in terms of spinnaker hoists, drops and gybes, which I duly read and tried to remember. On the first morning of the regatta we went out and practiced a couple, and then we were into our first race.

We started off doing ok, but after the second race we realised I was under-sheeting the main upwind. The boats I’ve sailed tend to have the boom around the rear leeward corner when sailing upwind, but this boat needed the main over the centre-line of the boat. Once we figured this out our results started improving.

However, the big thing I was learning was what makes a truly excellent crew. In my younger days I’d done a little crewing. Once I’d crewed in an event for a good friend and great sailor, and in light of what I know now, I didn’t do a great job. My GP14 crew was showing me how it should be done.

The first thing was the nearly constant communication. Upwind, his head was always out of the boat.

“We’ve got good speed and we’re pointing ok”

“Gust coming…looks like a lift…hitting in 3..2..1”

“We’re lifted…boat inside hasn’t got it yet…hold till next header…there’s the knock – have a look and see if you want to go”

“right of the beat is looking good…think we should look at heading over at the next opportunity…clear lane coming up”

And so on.

All this feedback was incredible. I could focus on sailing the boat fast in a straight line – only looking around when I needed to make a decision about something. I could focus on sail settings, boat trim and mainsheet tension, and because I was always being told what was going on I had an image of the race situation without having to look.

Downwind, we did something similar. Now his eyes were almost permanently on the spinnaker, trimming for optimal speed. I was looking around, and mostly behind, analysing the tactical situation and focusing on where the breeze was to sail the fastest course downwind.

He would be feeding information back to me all the time:

“good pressure…still good…going slightly soft…softer…better, good pressure…”

All this helped me sail a quick course for the breeze we were in, pointing up when the pressure was soft, bearing away when the pressure was better. And, all the time I was able to look around for the best lane, and focus on getting us into the best tactical position for the next mark.

He was also very good at letting me know when I’d done something wrong without stinging my ego – an invaluable skill for a crew. In fairness, I don’t upset easily these days, and unless the criticism had been stinging, I’d have been grateful for any advice he could give me. But he even did this well. For instance, if we did a gybe, he might say something on exiting the gybe like “great, we’re off and running again”; or he might say “good gybe, nice exit angle, spinnaker flying the whole way”. In this way, pretty quickly I knew that if I got the first response I’d done something wrong, and if I got the second then I’d done it well. And, if I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong I could ask and he’d tell me. It was a great way to communicate.

After each race we’d have a quick chat about the race, and then we’d shoot the breeze about something unrelated to sailing. It was a really nice way to spend a weekend.

Our improving results meant we qualified for the finals on the second day of the regatta. The second day dawned a force 6, gusting 7. We had a chat, and I said I wasn’t too sure about flying the kite in these conditions. He said he thought it would be alright, but that we could make a decision when on the water. As we approached the first windward mark I said I thought we might leave the kite in its bag and play it safe.

“No way, let’s throw the kite up – it’ll be great”

I don’t think he’d had any intention of not flying the spinnaker, but he knew that if he’d said it on shore then I might have dug my heels in. In the middle of the race, and in an ok position, he knew he stood a good chance of getting me to go for it. It’s normally the helm persuading the crew to move out of his or her comfort zone, but in this case the roles were reversed.

We capsized (a death roll – my fault), but we were far from alone. And he was right – it was great. Sailing downwind in a big breeze with a spinnaker up was a pretty spectacular feeling while it lasted.

We ended up fourth or fifth overall – pretty good for our first effort, although it should be said that the competition format suited us well.

But far better than the results was the learning – I had tons of new information and experience to take away with me. And a good friend too.

The post The Art of Being a Good Crew appeared first on THE FINAL BEAT.

And now, watching the 2024 Louis Vuitton Cup, Mr Wilson is turning up on our screens trying to sound nonchalant whilst the British boat is actually showing some speed:

Of course, I’m sure everyone remembers that around 8 years ago I briefly mentioned Rob Wilson in a post about the Optimist Selection Trials of 1989.

I’m sorry, what?

You don’t remember that?

Come on guys, pay attention.

Robert sailed at Littleton Sailing Club – a small lake club less than ten miles from the gravel pit that I learned to sail on. For that reason, I raced against him quite a bit over my Optimist years, and I got to admire the back of his boat from a range of angles and distances over that time.

I first heard of him when he was just 11 or 12. He won the prestigious Datchet Open – which was the end of season regatta and, to my mind anyway, a sort of unofficial Inland Championships.

It was a remarkable win for one so young, and it must have annoyed the hell out of quite a few 15-year-olds hoping for some last bit of Optimist glory.

Robert would go on to win a lot of Open meetings over the years I raced Optimists, but one in particular sticks in my mind – The Bowmoor Open of 1990.

I don’t remember much about the first race (other than calling “Starboard” on someone whilst I was on Port when I was in 3rd place and having to do a 720 – oh boy…), but according to the report in OP:NEWS (the Optimist magazine at the time) Rob won the first race, taking the lead at the last leeward mark.

The second race is described as follows:

Just after the start of the second race a major wind-shift left much of the fleet immediately out of contention. Andrew Simpson (yes, that Andrew Simpson) led to the first mark where he was overtaken by Richard Martin and Damian Lord (that would be me); that new order held to the finish with Martin winning from Lord and Simpson.

What the race report doesn’t mention is that Richard and I were clubmates, and for every beat for the remainder of the race Richard covered me so tightly I barely had enough air to breathe, let alone sail. I’m amazed I held on to second place. He was a super sailor (and would probably have beaten me by more if he’d ignored me altogether), but it was his first Open Meeting race win and he was determined not to lose first place – and rightly so.

All this meant that there were a lot of potential overall winners going in to the last race. The wind dropped from a gentle Force 2 to even lighter, and even as the fleet went onto the last beat it was still anyone’s regatta. Rob Wilson gained the lead at this late stage and looked set to win the Open when, out of the blue, he capsized. My memory is that he messed up a roll tack, although the race report he was “caught out by a 90 wind-shift”. It was quite probably a bit of both.

Anyone who has sailed Optimists (or had kids who have sailed Optimists; or indeed who have ever seen an Optimist…) will know that capsizing is a bit of a nightmare. Unlike self-draining modern boats, the Optimist is a bathtub without a plughole, and the only way to empty it is to bail it out.

For most people this would be race over, at least in terms of finishing first.

Not for Rob Wilson.

Somehow (and to this day I have no idea how) he managed to bail the boat out and win the race.

It was an impressive performance, if slightly annoying for the rest of us (although the fact that I finished 3rd overall, through a complete fluke of results (I had a 2nd and a 6th to count), meant that I wasn’t overly upset by the whole thing).

So it seems that Rob Wilson has a bit of experience coming back from a seemingly impossible situations – something that must have come in useful as a coach for the INEOS team over the years.

Who’d have thought that some America’s Cup level resilience could be forged in the light airs of an Optimist Open meeting at a small lake in England?

Not me, anyway.

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This, of course, means that I am in a tiny minority of humankind. Even my son, who will watch pretty much any sport, can rarely be persuaded to sit and watch with me. And my wife and daughter? No chance.

There is good reason for this. Sailing is a terrible sport to watch.

Really, really bad.

Unless conditions are near-perfect, and a lot of time and money has gone in to setting up the production (with loads of cameras, and fancy special effect overlays to show laylines and distances to marks), and you have some understanding of the sport, it is nearly impossible to get engaged with sailing as a spectator sport, especially if you are not a die-hard fan.

But we keep trying. This year we had the Olympics (about which I will write more in another article or two), and the America’s Cup, and the Vendee Globe. And of course there is SailGP, now heading in to season number five, with several events each season.

They have all had a go at making sailing watchable, with varying degrees of success/failure.

The guys tasked with selling sailing as a viewing event must have one of the most difficult jobs in production.

And what about the commentators? God love them. At least sailing boats look great most of the time, so the camera guys have something to work with.

But the commentators have to fill time while the wind picks up. Or drops off. Or stops shifting around. Or until the race management re-sets the course. Or the lightening passes over. Or maybe there is a general recall and the whole starting sequence has to be done again.

And even if there is racing, they have to talk about what is happening when it is almost impossible to actually know what is happening. The gridlines to the marks are often not perfect. and nor are the laylines.

It is impossible to see where the best pressure is. It is impossible to know what shifts are happening. It is impossible to know the effect that the current is having across the racecourse.

And, most of all, if it is fleet racing, it can be impossible to follow everything that is going on across the fleet.

And, all the while, in the back of the commentator’s head, is the awareness that there are a bunch of keyboard warriors – myself included – who will criticise every little thing they do, from the mistakes they make to the sound of their voice; from the fact that they speak over the sailing comms to the fact that they haven’t spoken enough and all we can hear is the sailing comms.

In short, it is an impossible job.

But.

Of course, there had to be a “but”.

As SailGP and the America’s Cup both tend to pitch themselves as Formula 1 on water, perhaps we might learn a little from that sport.

(I told you my son will watch virtually any sport, and this means I end up watching virtually every sport).

In F1 commentary they tend to have a main commentator who is like a super-fan – he gets excited by everything (even the Monaco Grand Prix!), and he seems to have an endless supply of facts and figures about all drivers, teams, and tracks.

Beside the main commentator is an expert – an ex-driver that knows the detail of the sport. He can describe what it is like to drive these cars, what specific challenges are presented by each individual corner on a track. He knows what the thought processes are for the drivers and their strategists, and why they might make some of the decisions they make.

And alongside this they have other analysts that look at specific footage, and who offer insights into specific incidents or moments – again, generally ex-drivers.

Compare these two clips – watch each for 30 seconds:

First is the start of the Monza Grand Prix –

Other than one driver running wide and having to rejoin, virtually nothing of note happens in the first 30 seconds – no position changes among the leaders and no crashes. and yet the commentary is so engaging that you are drawn in to share the excitement.

The second is the start of Race 17 of the LV cup, where the two pace setters from the first few races face off in challenging conditions:

So much happens!

Luna Rossa look for the hook, and New Zealand defend, momentarily looking in the controlling position. But suddenly Luna Rossa accelerate and look to roll over the top of New Zealand.

There’s several seconds where it could go either way – will the Kiwis be able to luff the Italians over the line, or will Luna Ross get clear ahead and win the start? They just manage it, and even the unflappable Peter Burling is shaken into compounding the error by attempting a down-speed tack and dropping off the foil.

All this happens with the Italian boat hitting nearly 48 knots (90 kmh / 55mph). In a 75 ft boat. That weighs 6200 kg (nearly 7 of your American tons).

We’re told all the time how vital the start is in these match races, and it is the only time that we are guaranteed to see the boats engage in close combat, but the commentary just allows the moment to pass.

Sure, it is good to watch anyway but, if you are new to watching sailing, you need someone to show you where the excitement is. The F1 commentator barely takes a breath, which is in stark contrast to the sailing commentary where they barely say a word.

I know it sounds like I am having a go at the current commentators. I’m not – I think they’re great. But it needs at least one of them to be passionate and excited about everything that is happening. We have the experts (Glenn Ashby is particularly good), but we don’t seem to have the main commentator yet.

I was on the edge of my seat watching that start, but if you were watching for the first time you would not have known that anything exciting was happening at all.

It reminded me of this classic video. It gives a good idea as to what sailing looks like to someone that doesn’t have a clue about the sport, and it is well worth a watch if you have 3 minutes. be warned there is some NSFW vocab, but it does make me laugh every time:

I’m sure all this stuff will get better and better the more sailing is shown on TV, and kudos to everyone that steps up to do it. It takes a lot of courage to work live – I know I couldn’t do it.

And for those of you that think no amount of commentary can make it interesting, then have a watch of this video – proof that you can make anything exciting if you know exactly what you are doing:

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