Adam Cort - Getting Started in Sailboat Racing

Copyright 2005 by Adam Cort and Richard Stearns. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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T here are few things in this world more satisfying than sailboat racing. Theres the challenge of handling your boat in close quarters with other boats, the thrill of competition, the visceral beauty of being part of a fleet, the excitement of thundering to windward, neck and neck with another well-found vessel, and the view of the water around you littered with sailboats as far as the eye can see.

Unfortunately, the excitement of the racecourse is something many sailors never experience. Cruisers who wouldnt think twice about crossing hundreds of miles of open water blanch at the idea of racing around the buoys. Daysailors who are perfectly comfortable sailing their sloops through a crowded mooring field think they arent ready to mix it up with the big boys. Many are worried about what their fellow sailors might think and about making themselves look foolish. Others worry about safety. It can be scary sailing at high speed in a very small area with dozens of other boats.

Still, for all its terrors, the racecourse is, in reality, a remarkably safe place, and getting out there is more than worth the risk of losing a little gelcoat or tasting an occasional helping of humble pie. In fact, once you begin racing, you might wonder how anyone can truly appreciate the art of sailing without putting him- or herself to the test in a competitive environment. Uffa Fox, the famed English yachtsman and naval architect, perhaps put it best in his classic work, According to Uffa, when he admonished the novice sailor to get out on the racecourse as soon as possible, because, as he wrote, once you race, every fault is pointed out in the way other boats sail away from you, and when you do anything well this too is revealed as you start sailing away from the rest of the fleet.

The purpose of this book is to explain the fundamentals of racing, so that daysailors and cruisers will feel confident enough not only to crew on a racing boat, but to enter their own boat in a race. It does not cover sailing basics, because it is assumed that the reader is already familiar with his or her boat. Likewise it does not teach the nuances of higher-level strategy or sail tuning, because that will needlessly complicate the basic issues of getting around the buoys.

What this book will do is provide the sailor with everything he or she needs to negotiate the racecourse safely and efficiently, and maybe even come in first place from time to time. If you aspire to win an Olympic medal in the 470 class, you will need more than this book (unless you are very good). But then again, you will never win that medal if you dont get out on the course in the first place.

opens with a brief summary of a hypothetical race, and the subsequent chapters break down the racing experience into bite-size pieces. This not only makes the process easier to understand, but reflects the nature of the typical race, since it consists of a number of distinct and very specific parts. There are, of course, the rules (which are not half as complicated as some might think), the start, the windward leg, mark roundings, downwind sailing, the finish, and basic overall strategy. Weve also included a chapter on how to get involved; i.e., finding races and figuring out what kind of racing is best for you.

Historically, sailboats have existed not just for pleasure, but to get something done. Even the dowdiest cruiser has at its heart a clipper ship or fishing schooner just begging to be the first one in. Few of us will ever have the chance to round Cape Horn or survive killer storms at sea. But in the spirit of Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Nile, we can beat the pants off that fellow with the gaudy yellow spinnaker! Now lets get out there, put that boat to work, and have some fun!

T o those not familiar with the sport, sailboat racing can seem like a study in controlled chaos, with very little in the way of control. One moment youll see clumps of boats sailing off in opposite directions, spreading themselves so thin its hard to tell if they are even part of the same group. Next theyll all hoist their spinnakers at the same time and sail along in a neat and tidy line. The start in particular can seem like a kind of waterborne madness. Aboard the committee boat, where the race committee administers the race, horns blare and flags go rushing up and down halyards, while the fleet of competitors circles about in what appears to be impossibly tight quarters, like hyperactive terriers sniffing the wind. A small powerboat with a couple of bright-orange inflatable buoys charges off to windward. Then all of a sudden a flag comes down, theres yet another blast of the horn or maybe even a gun, and some of the boats that had been milling about, apparently aimlessly, begin charging off in the same direction. Amazing! How did they know it was their turn? How do they keep from bumping into each other? And how do they even know where theyre going?