Sailing Downhill

Having been asked by numerous people what the secret to my speed was last year, I thought it about time I let you all into a few secrets. Downwind speed is the big difference between the top ten and the rest of the fleet and if you can hang on up the beat you will find that the majority of place changes occur on the reaches and particularly the runs. The key to speed on the sea is surfing and the guy who catches the most waves will almost certainly be the fastest no matter what equipment he uses.

Now, I know you are all saying that you've heard it all before but there is far more to surfing than just bearing away down the wave. The most important skill is to try and keep your average speed up. The faster you are going the easier it will be to catch the next wave, which means wallowing in between waves will simply not do. When you feel the boat falling off the back of the wave steer up to increase your speed and go looking for the next wave instead of letting it come to you!

Another important skill is being able to pick a path through the wave in front. This requires you to look ahead for any gaps which you can plane through and therefore jump the wave. In slower boats like Solos this is sometimes the only way that you can overtake a wave as the boat is not fast enough to plane over the back of it. In these conditions most boats are only separated by one wave and the people on the move are just better at finding the gaps.

OK, so you are still finding it difficult to catch those waves. Well that's probably because you're not pumping enough. "Arrrr he mentioned the P word". Now I am sorry to bring up the forbidden subject but the fact is that one pump per wave is legal, so make full use of it. Just as you feel the transom being lifted by the wave give the mainsheet a pump and throw your weight out and back in the boat. This will increase your boat speed enough to catch those tricky little waves in intermediate conditions.

Right, now something for all you hot shots out there. In Looe the problem downwind was that the waves were small and close together; this meant that as soon as you caught the wave you planed straight into the one in front. I managed to cope with this by Zig Zagging. This is a technique of getting on the wave and bearing away hard so that you slide across the wave rather than down it. On the runs this will mean that you will sail by the lee in one direction until you feel yourself falling off the wave, then head up sharply so that you broad reach back which can increase your speed so much that it puts you back on the wave that you have just come off. To do this you will need to let your kicker right off so that the top of your sail twists out in front of the boom. One warning though, it really is tippy!