North Sails One Design

Do Your Homework:
TEST BEFORE THE RACE

Article by Brian Bissell

It’s always great to have friends on the water. You’ve got a buddy to raft up with; but even better, you’ve got a secret weapon. If you and a friend test before a race, both of you are going to be super smart and fast on the race course. There are three types of testing, and let’s start with speed testing.

SPEED TESTING:

Find a friend who is pretty fast and around your same level of competition. This can be one of the first things you do when you get out to the race course. Just sail next to each other on a close-hauled course for a couple minutes. You want to be close together but not so much that you affect each other’s lane. Your goal is to check out who’s faster and why. Maybe your friend can tighten their outhaul or maybe your vang is too tight. The goal at the end is to have both boats going super fast, so help each other tune up.

TEST THE COURSE:

The next type of testing is testing the course. You can do this when you have at least 20 minutes before the race, and you probably want to do it right after you’ve tested your speed. You and a friend hang out around the middle of the line, or just above the line to avoid everybody. Then you make a plan like, “Tack after 3 minutes. I’ll go left.” Both of you come at each other with speed and then one person ducks, you hit your watches, and you sail to opposite sides. When your watch goes off at three minutes, tack back. Whoever’s in front caught a good shift, and probably went to the favored side.

TEST THE LINE:

The next kind of testing is testing the line. This works on small to medium sized lines, but at a big regatta it’s going to be too tough. When you’re hanging out on the starting line you can wrangle a friend and make a plan like “Go at 1:30” or set a 2 minute countdown- whatever gives enough time for each of you to sail over to opposite ends. You hit your watches and sail over to each end to be ready to start when your watch goes off. If you do it right, one guy is on starboard at the boat and one guy is on port at the pin, and both are going fast. You both sail towards each other and whoever’s in front started at the favored end. Just make sure you both started fast and at the same time.

If you want to do a killer test combo, you can test the line and then head straight into testing the course. Just remember to reset your watches, and if one person is way ahead after the line test, even it up again before starting the course test. Remember, you and your friend need to be pretty even speeds to make those tests work, so make sure you do your speed test first!