505 Training at Burton Sailing Club
by Ben Iliffe 17 Jul 2015 12:08 BST
11 July 2015
505 training at Burton © GBR 505
Six boats attended, ranging from people new to the class and those who have been sailing 5o5s for a good number of years.
The morning session started with one tack and one gybe around the coach boat. Racing rules applied. The aim of this exercise is to get the body warmed up and the joints mobile.
This was followed by follow my leader (the classic training exercise). The focus was on boat control. This lead into Elephant ears, For this exercise the coach boat was moored in the middle of four buoys on one side boats headed up from the leeward mark aiming to tack as close to the coach boat as possible. On the other side boats came downwind gybing as close to the coach boat as possible. By turning as close to the boat as possible the coach was able to give feedback on tacks and gybes and film feet position.
During the course of the morning the coaches jumped in and out of the participants boats, allowing the helms and crews the chance to view their own boat from the outside point of view and analyse what they observed.
The afternoon started the same way as the morning with a brief warm up around the coach boat before starting practise which included secret starts. Secret starts are where the go can happen at any point in the last min. This made boat control important as well as putting the focus of boat positioning and planning strategy for the start. The races had two laps with the leeward mark being the coach boat. This allows the coaches to feedback on both the start and the leeward mark.
The results change as and number of races progressed and the fleet became closer together, with some great racing and some great learning opportunities to be had.
The races moved into follow my leader and from that tacking on the whistle. This was an opportunity to put the feedback from the am session in to practice and bring progressive overload into play, by increasing the frequency of the tacks.
Once at the top of the lake the fleet turned and gybed on the whistle.
The day finished off with individual feedback for boats regarding rig and feel of the boat. Big difference where seen. The leeches of main and jib where running parallel on all boats and with a quick drop in the rake the boat became much smoother to sail.
Post sailing the participants met in the bar to analyse the footage from the sessions ready for the racing the next day.