Your best strategy tools (rules of thumb)

Sail the long tack first.

Obviously, if the tide is running across the course, the lee-bow tack will be the long one (unless the mark layer accounts for it)

I would disagree a little David. I'd rather be in the second rank right next to the committee boat than at the wrong end of the line but on the front rank. You can tack off immediately and then back again shortly afterwards and far more clear air than at the other end. But then I don't win much so maybe the file of thumb is to go the opposite way to what I'm doing

Originally posted by davidyacht Set yourself up to secure room at marks early.

+1

Amazing how overlooked the leeward mark rounding is when talking about or thinking about race tactics.  How often do you see people dropping too late and/or being squeezed out to the outside of a 3 or 4 boat 'raft' they could have avoided with some forethought.  We all do it, but its doing it infrequently that is the key for me.  Boats with racks or wings its even more important, 2 or 3 boats inside you can leave you ~10 metres from the buoy and that's a long way downwind when you start going back up the beat below them!

I concede this point, you can use the second rank at the committee boat end very effectively at Garda to get to the cliffs asap.  I guess what I am hinting at is that very often I see a second and third rank group of boats at the favoured end who have no options, whereas being on the line but a bit further up or down can give you a better chance than being buried.