RS Tera Northern Squad Winter Coaching

High winds keep the fleet ashore

The high winds forecast hadn't materialised when the squad mustered at 9.30am however it was already at the top end of the wind strength for effective coaching and Head Coach Brett Cokayne decided to keep the fleet ashore to 'see what happens later'. What happened later proved just what a wise decision it was to have a land based day - when Assistant Coach Bernard Clark went out to take the wind strength later on his anemometer stopped working when it hit 69mph!

The coaching session started with a session on Controllables and the squad showed that they'd done their homework with some fantastic contributions to the discussion with Brett and Bernard sharing learning that they remembered from their sessions with the legendary Jim Saltonstall. Session two looked at race strategy and the squad split into small groups to consider a race scenario and look at how much they could plan prior to going afloat. Once again lots of learning and contribution, and a chance to reflect on the preparation which the Northern fleet had done prior to the Worlds in Weymouth earlier in the year and how useful this had been. The lunch break gave the squad chance to practice some sail handling skills - using their coats as spinnakers and zooming round the car park on their ripsticks!

With the wind now howling round the outside of the training room and leaves blowing past the windows horizontally, even Rohan had by now decided that not sailing was perhaps the right call the afternoon was spent looking at rules - using some excellent footage from the first coaching session some weeks previously to illustrate how the rules apply at marks and how important it is to plan your approach to gain maximum advantage. One particularly good video stream showed 3 different rule situations within the space of 20 seconds of video footage - and generated a huge amount of debate and another showed how getting it wrong can leave even the best of sailors bottling their approach to the mark! The final session was spent 'with Steve Cockerill', looking at downwind sailing techniques. A fantastic day, even if the boats did stay on their trollies!