That Extra 2-3%

Thank you!

Training goes without saying - I typically train 2 or 3 times as much as I race. General time on the water helps but targeted training is so much more efficient. Be brutally honest with yourself about strengths and weakness - upwind in waves, upwind in light winds in a slop, downwind in waves, straightline speed etc. There will be up to 20 of these. Mark yourself out of 10 (honestly) and work on anything less than a 7 or 8. There will be non-racing bits as well on this list too - understanding tidal flows at the venue, fitness etc. Mark yourself on these too. I used to make a note of every mistake I'd made in a race (bad start, overstanding the windward mark, missing a shift etc). It's a bit nerdy but it helps highlight where you need to improve.

Whenever I've been to class training it seems most of the emphasis is on tacking and gybing. That's fine and they need to be done efficiently - but really how often do you tack and gybe in a race - say, 4 tacks a beat and one gybe per lap (unless in an asymmetric)? My view is to concentrate much more on straightline speed - upwind and down. If you can eke out a few boatlengths upwind you'll be a tactical wizard. It can be a bit boring sometimes just sailing upwind concentrating on speed and heeling angle, but it helps. For that reason, I mostly do a maximum of an hour's training at a time before stopping for a break (coming in for a cup of tea or stopping on the water for 5 minutes) to ward off boredom.

I think downwind speed is more important than upwind speed. All the top guys are searingly quick downwind. Think about it. In most hiking boats it's impossible to gain more than a fraction of a knot upwind in most conditions. Downwind you can double your speed by getting on waves properly. Practise! You will still need to be in the top 10% at the first mark though.

Fitness is paramount too. A few years ago I was out of work for a few months. In between job hunting I spent a lot of time in the gym and out running. I thought it would make a slight difference to my speed. It actually made a massive difference - not necessarily on the first lap of a race when everyone's still sitting out hard, but on subsequent laps when fatigue starts to set in. I mostly do a lot of running and leg exercises.

Finally, even at this relatively bottom end of the sport, psychology is more important than most people realise. I like to be comfortable in new surroundings. If I haven't been to a venue before, and there isn't a pre-Nationals event there, I try and spend half a day sometime ahead of the regatta just wandering round, getting my bearing etc. I just find it helps me. I think this also why you find people who do really well at open meetings but often fail to deliver at Nationals. Too much personalised pressure, feeling uncomfortable in new surroundings? If you've done the preparation - training, fitness, tides etc you'll feel confident and that's a tremendous help. You don't need to tell anyone but if you know you're the one who's put the hours in over the winter when you'd have preferred not to go out, got up early to go to the gym etc, you'll have an inner smugness (sorry, confidence) that is difficult to match.

I've found all of the above has worked for me. Others no doubt have different approaches which are just as valid if not more so, but I think the more you think about your sailing the more you'll understand the changes you need to make.

Another thing is what some sports psychs call "self efficacy", I think - the knowledge that it is only logical that you will do well because you have done all the training. It's quite different from the hyped-up self-belief, and IMHO it's that grounding that allows you to grind back from bad legs without blowing up psychologically.

Another thing is fleet management; sailing for consistency and (depending on the regatta) keeping the right sort of eye on your rivals. That doesn't mean always tightly covering them, but it does mean not charging off into corners and being prepared to sail percentages.

It's also important to be able to identify your path to improvement; are you getting good starts and then gradually losing ground to the boats around you (= boatspeed issues) or are you losing ground in big chunks (= tactics) or falling over (= boathandling). The better sailors seem to spend more time identifying the specifics of where they must improve.

I just did a nationals in a class I've sailed in for years, but basically dropped out of several years ago. With only half a dozen training sessions but with a new sail to replace my old one (which despite only being used for nationals and being meticulously cared for had been getting slow without my realising) the speed was great - it's just that the lack of practise caused fitness and gybing issues, some dodgy mid-line starts, stuffing up one layline and crashing out at the very last gybe mark, which put me from about 5th out of 74 down to 9th. However, those specific performance issues have been identified and now that I'm getting back into the class seriously it's an easy matter to do some specific training to get back to the front.

Perhaps the key, once your speed is OK is very specifically identifying every place you lost time and places and then eradicating the problem in training and preparation. That can include (as in my case) being more aware of my tendency to not notice my sails ageing when they are still capable of giving good results.