Words of Wisdom

Words of Wisdom – 11-13-05 - Mark Bear

It is a thrill to win a day of frostbiting. But as my young friend Tim Pitts reminded me, this was a win with an asterisk. *FDNC (Ferg did not compete) I've sailed against Ferg quite a bit this summer as he trained for the worlds. I have always marvelled at how well he can consistently get great starts in the middle of the line. In contrast, I have always found the allure of the ends to be irresistible -- especially the boat end. I'm
usually there with the likes of Scott Milnes, Peter Seidenberg, and Dave Moffet. Which illustrates the problem with starting at the ends. Only one boat gets the best start, and with this type of company, that is pretty tough assignment. I therefore read carefully Ferg's WOW two weeks ago, when he revealed his starting method, and then I studied it last week when I was on the committee boat. I decided on Sunday that I was going to force myself to overcome temptation and start in the middle. It worked! So my most
important word of wisdom is to read Ferg's words of wisdom.

My second suggestion is to continually ask yourself what is working upwind and downwind in every race. For example, in the second to last race Steve Kirkpatrick took the pin, sailed into the lefty coming off the shore, tacked and never looked back. I made a note and did the same in the last race, to good effect. The point is that even if you finish poorly in a race, you need to understand what was working for the leaders so you can modify your game plan. You should always ask yourself at the end of each race if the plan you had was working and, if not, what was. The most frustrated I get in sailing is finishing poorly and not even knowing why. The key to improvement is to observe what the leaders are doing. On Sunday the winning
strategy was to sail up the left side on the first beat, favor the left side (facing downwind) on the run, and sailing the right side on the last beat.