THE INVITATIONAL COACHING 4.2 IN NORTHAMPTON

Head coach was Mark Ripley

5/6 of Oct 

Went with Sacha 

Learnt about manoeuvres we learnt a lot about dirty air and how far it actually travels and we touched on fitness 

DAY 1

On the first day me and my friend and fellow sailor Sacha Gerra who was also invited, arrived at the club with enthusiasm about being somewhere new. As soon as we arrived in the training room, we were told the plan for the morning and promptly went outside for a warm up that lasted roughly 5/10 minutes and I found this was good to get focused for the day. The morning warm up consisted of stretches, a game of stuck in the mud and some running to get blood circulation pumping along with some other activities. We ran back nice and warm ready to get changed. Once we had gotten changed, we went to the slipway and left land excited for the 3 hours ahead. With the weather being quite shifty, as all lakes are, we had to focus and keep our head out of the boat. 

The first exercise was split tacks which is a method commonly used by two sailors that are evenly matched, know each other or are happy to work together. The method consists of two sailors going off at the same time to either side of the course; one sailor to port and the other on starboard tack at an agreed time and whoever is ahead at the end probably had the favoured side. This process is often repeated multiple times with the sailors switching sides each time. The next activity was ‘thinker stinker’, to perform this one of you plays the role of the thinker and you must choose a side of the course to go up, whilst the stinker goes the other. If the stinker wins the thinker needs to rethink their tactics and then they switch. 

When we came in for lunch we were met by amazing warm food to re-energise us for the second session. Following relaunch, we started doing an activity called shift simulator where we start normally on a windward leeward course with three marks at the top labelled A, B and C. On the way up the beat the coach would tell us which mark to go to creating an artificial wind shift. Then finally we would face the magnificent, one and only, ‘chosen gate’ in this game you have to choose the correct leeward gate, of three, to help you on the upwind beat. We soon came in and had an insightful debrief, headed to our accommodation and nestled round a fire with tacos.

DAY 2

The warm up was practically the same but with a couple of different stretches and a game of tag instead of stuck in the mud. After a short but sweet briefing, we launched just as promptly as day one. As soon as we left, we got straight into ‘1/2 tack beats’ where you had to complete the task of doing a beat in only one tack; this makes you very susceptible to shifts and you need to perfectly judge the lay line or it cannot work. But it was still a race so you had to think about all the other tactics and strategies from before. The next activity was ‘gain feature’ where we had to round the rib no matter what area it was in and then race up to the windward mark. There was more warming food for lunch to power us on for the second session. After launching we timed laps of a windward leeward course to see who could get the fastest lap and in the end it was Sacha and for a fun finale, a cool conclusion, an energising ending we did RACING!!! The races were fairly evenly matched and I loved meeting new faces. And soon enough we were back home and sad it had ended.

By Dylan Cullen