Caterpillar

Last week end was a case of back to school. After a year away from the helm and back with my teammate from three years ago I ventured back into the very competitive Belgian Snipe scene. More than thirty boats on a short start line (If you were to scale the fleet size to the course size it's the equivalent of 100 boats on a normal course) and then very short up and down courses.

If the lessons learnt are proportional to the trouncing experienced then much was learnt. This sort of racing puts a premium on boat control on the starting line and boat handling in general. It should have come as no surprise that after spending all my time on a Moth weighing 15% of a Snipe my time on distance would be a little off.

But the most valuable lesson had to do with boat set up. And it can be translated to the Moth or any other class. I have a special traveller system on the Snipe which allows me to accurately control the leach. However, unlike the standard system it is not self tacking. In medium size fleets and long courses this system is an advantage (and there are results to prove it). But in tight spots it degrades boathandling and distracts from tactical awareness. That means it is no good for the type of racing we were doing last week end and it is questionable for a continental or world championship where sooner or later you will get in a tight situation. No one needs distractions while trying to get out of jail.

Boats need to be kept as simple as possible and as automatic as possible or at least have a simple default mode that delivers 95% of potential performance. When I am steering an offshore racer I don't look for peaks in my speed, I try to keep my average as high as possible by not slowing down much in a rough patch or light spot. I have my trimmers set up the boat for accelleration and try to keep the groove as wide as possible while still being fast. Similarly a dinghy should be set up to never slow down. It's the best average speed that wins a race.

By the way a big thanks to Max and Jan for their superlative organisation of the Antwerp Snipe Cup. Now I'm going back in the cocoon and when I come out I'll have wings.