4/17 Practice Debrief + Goals Form + Photo Album

Hi Sailors,

Some homework to do before Tuesday's practice. I know this is more than usual, but this is all very important as we get into our champs season. 

Practice Debrief + Photo Album

Link to our photo album. Please find and review your videos. If you have any questions let me know. Looking at your boat maneuvers from an outside perspective helps so much!  

Don't worry if the one video I took of you was a bad tack or acceleration. Bad tacks happen from time to time, but it is important to break down the video and understand "Why was this tack a bad tack, and what led to it?". The goal is to be more consistent. 

FJ acceleration example videos. Light Air Accelerations. Watch through the first couple accelerations and focus on boat 17. Some things to highlight is how much they control the boat with their body weight. They have a great shoulder out snap flatten. The crew does an amazing job in the first acceleration! Our goal is to get the boat flat as fast as possible. Notice how the skipper has to lean back towards the stern of the boat to get a good flatten and still be able to turn up. Later on in the video at 1:20, the skipper of boat 15 does huge shoulders out flatten. This should be the standard. Last thing to note is how smooth and continuous the body/boat movements are.

This example video has much more wind. Notice how the acceleration changes when they have more wind. The wind does most of the work of creating heel. Then both sailors hike hard to flatten and then they are off racing. Not wasting any time slowly getting the boat flat. 

Here is the Laser example of shooting up at the start line. While it's much more effective in a laser, it's still a great tool to use during FJ starts. If you find yourself with both of your neighbors bow out on you at the start, you should shoot up and try to regain good positioning. It allows you to increase how big your leeward gap is. Just be careful about shooting up too much and being over early. We are going to practice this next week and then hopefully be able to do magic carpet. 

Also please watch through our first practice race from Thursday's practice. The race is split up into three videos (Start, windward rounding, and finish). The start video is the one that's 35 seconds long. This is the best start I've seen from you guys! Everyone on the line with speed. This race was super competitive all the way through. Look how grouped up everyone is at the windward mark.

Goals Form

Please complete this goals form. 

Thank you sailors for making Thursday's practice competitive and fun! 

Enjoy your weekend,

Cooper