Top sailing tips

Learn to sail in Gordon’s Bay – Exciting news – The Sailing Academy is set to providing keelboat sailing lessons in Gordon’s Bay! The Academy will offer the World Sailing recognised South African Sailing ‘Learn to Sail’ course. This course includes 36 hours of course contact, run as 18 two hour sessions of fun, theory and practical sailing and is divided into four levels, each with a certificate of competence. The courses will be run using the Academies L26 keelboat, Wild Goose.

Fitness in Sailing & Winter Training – As I sit in my study looking out across False Bay, rain pouring down, the topic of winter training and fitness crossed my mind. A wiser person than I once told me that in sailing, you need to be fit enough to carry out the manoeuvres in your dinghy efficiently, all the way through to the last leg of the last race on the last day of the last regatta of the sailing season.

Sail Controls & Sail Trim – In this article on the basic sail controls and sail trim, I will explain how to use the basic sail controls available on all boats to set your sail trim. These sail controls should be adjusted whilst sailing your boat, each time you change the course sailed.

Why Race a Dinghy – As I prepare for this weekends Race Training clinic, I was reminded what an awesome sport dinghy racing is. Regattas are run in an amazing environment, often in iconic sailing waters, while we as sailors take up the challenge of the wind and water, stretching our physical and mental abilities at all levels – there is no other sport like it!

Trim Your Dinghy For Speed – There are three requirements that you need to achieve, if you want to win a race. Firstly, you need to ensure that you start and finish the race, secondly, you need to sail consistently faster than all the other boats and thirdly, you need to make less mistakes than your competitors, all the way round the race course.

Staying Out Of Trouble On The Race Course – Preparation for the first race of the regatta starts way before the Skippers Brief on day one, but for the purposes of this sailing article we are only going to concern ourselves with some of the things that might go wrong on the race course and not all of the off-the-water preparation.

Using The Wind To Your Best Advantage – As sailors it is the wind that drives our boats forward and round the race course, to be competitive we need to be sure to use it to our best advantage at all times. It requires intense concentration and perfect sail trim to maintain your boat speed through the gusts, lulls and windshifts around the racecourse.

Racing With A Gennaker – Modern racing dinghies all use asymmetric spinnakers or gennakers providing thrilling high speed reach-to-reach racing on the downwind leg using the apparent wind. Unlike symmetrical spinnakers, the gennaker has its clew attached to a continuous sheet while the tack is attached to a pole that is pulled out from the bow when the gennaker is hoisted & retracted when the gennaker is dropped.

Perfecting Your Tacks & Gybes – Smooth tacks and error free gybes are critical if you are to win the race. It is imperative that you practice your tacks and gybes at every opportunity in all wind strengths, I suggest that you put aside an hour per on-the-water training day to complete 50 tacks and 50 gybes, tacking or gybing every 30 seconds.

Perfecting your Dinghy Sailing Starts – A good start in dinghy sailing can be crucial to a good result and whilst races are not won on the startline, they can certainly be lost. During the first 30 seconds of the first beat every meter translates to more positions gained or lost than at any other time during the race!