Craig Helming to Win

How to be a winning helm
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-912621-98-9
Verlag: Fernhurst Books Limited
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 80 Seiten

Reihe: Sail to Win

Nick Craig's ground-breaking Helming to Win was published 10 years ago to great reviews: 'Many sailing books can be recycles of familiar themes and ideas. Not this one! This is a highly personal and radical, fresh view of the subject area.' In the following decade since it was published, Nick has won 10 World, 3 European and 20 National Championships! That's winning more championships than most of us have attended over this period. As an amateur sailor, with a senior full-time job, Nick knows how to make the most of his time on the water. Every race is recorded in his notes, every race builds on his knowledge. This new edition of Helming to Win utilises what he has learnt from those 33 championship wins (and many other less successful events), with new learning, new anecdotes, new photos and additional captions on the photo sequences to ensure the key learnings are easy to take on. This updated breakthrough book will help you make the transition from weekend racer to national champion, just as Nick has done. Covering everything from where to look and getting 'in the groove' to mental approaches and championship sailing, you will be working your way up the leaderboard in no time. Packed full of intelligent insight, brilliant top tips and engaging photo sequences, if your goal is to win then this is the book for you!

Nick Craig is the 'Champion of Champions' having won the Endeavour Trophy 7 times - more than any other helm. He has also won 19 World, 6 European and 48 National Championships in a variety of classes including the Finn, D-One, Merlin Rocket and RS400. Remarkably he is not a professional sailor - all of this has been achieved alongside a full-time job.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Craig, Nick

Leseproben

Upwind Speed

The key reason why some people seem to be able to sail fast in any boat is good technique. Good technique means being able to sail a boat consistently flat and balanced as the wind changes in strength and direction with minimal use of the rudder. Often this is described as being ‘in the groove’. Upwind speed is achieved by setting your boat up correctly and sailing it flat.

Getting ‘In The Groove’

Sailing ‘in the groove’ is a wonderful feeling – you feel your boat sailing higher and faster than those around you or when sailing against the very best at Olympic level, holding your own!

Your boat is ‘in the groove’ when:

1. It is dead flat in all sea states

2. Your foils are providing lift, as shown by slight weather helm (i.e. the boat tries to point to windward a touch when sailed flat)

3. Your sails are optimally set for the wind and wave conditions (which is a book in itself!)

Sailing Flat

Your boat needs to be sailed dead flat to be ‘in the groove’. This is an unnatural position unless you have trained yourself to sail like this, because a few degrees of heel is more comfortable. An inclinometer (showing your angle of heel) is a useful useful training aid. It is also helpful to look behind at the ripples from the rudder to see that they are even.

Foils / Feel On The Tiller

The tiller is a vital feedback loop for the helm. So you must treat it nicely and hold it lightly so that the boat can ‘talk’ to you. On most boats you are aiming for a touch of weather helm, i.e. a little bit of pull to leeward on the tiller. It does vary by boat, for example a Merlin Rocket likes a very light tiller, an OK a heavier one. Spending time letting the boat talk to you with a light grip on the tiller extension will increase your feel for your boat.

Your foils should be just biting (shown by slight weather helm), thus generating lift. However, you don’t want your foils to bite too hard or you will be having to pull your tiller towards you all the time to stop your boat luffing. This creates a lot of drag from your rudder.

TOP TIP

If you feel you have fallen out of the groove, it is natural to tense up which normally means gripping the tiller extension tighter. You then feel the boat less and can enter a vicious circle of slowness! If you feel you are out of the groove, put the tiller extension behind you (the ‘frying pan’ grip) and grip it lightly so that you regain feel of your boat.

Sails

Your sails should be optimally set with all telltales flowing or just breaking and your sails set to the optimal shape for the conditions.

The Dynamic Groove

Most boats have a ‘high’ and ‘low’ groove. The high groove is when the boat sails really fast being pinched a touch; the low groove is when it is sailed low, fast and free. Finding these two grooves for your boat is a really powerful tactical weapon.

Typically the high mode will mean tighter leeches and a flatter luff entry. So you should sail with a touch more mainsheet tension / kicker and a touch less outhaul and inhaul to hook the lower leech and move the sail draft aft. You should also sail with a touch more leeward heel and look for height via a touch of pinching in flat spots of water. All of these adjustments are subtle compared to the low mode.

The low groove typically means setting up with slightly more open leeches and a rounder luff entry. You should sail with a touch less mainsheet tension / kicker and a touch more inhaul to open up the luff entry so that your boat naturally points lower. You may use a little more outhaul to open up the lower leech. If it is windy, you will have to play the sails much more because you aren’t using pinching to take the sting out of gusts. Again, all of these changes are subtle compared to high mode, except for the amount of mainsheet movement.

Keeping a boat consistently ‘in the groove’ as the wind and waves change is much harder than initially finding the groove. It is the key reason why some people can sail a range of boats consistently fast. The secrets are stability of heel, suitable tiller movement and the ability to change gears.

Stability Of Heel

To be ‘in the groove’, your boat needs to be flat and, more importantly, consistently flat. Stability of heel is key. If your boat is wobbling from side to side you will upset the flow over the foils, which is critical to generating lift. Stability of heel will generate more lift and enable you to sail higher than the boats around you, with no loss of speed. It is the secret weapon for ‘pointing high’.

Sailing consistently flat is much harder than sailing flat momentarily. To do it consistently you need to be anticipating the heeling effect of gusts, lulls, headers and lifts which can only be achieved by having your head out of the boat. An excellent crew helps make this happen.

In training, and in training events, a good objective is to sail flat all of the time. This may be slower at first because you may be focusing on this rather than your telltales, the next gust or the multitude of other things that sailors can be looking for. But be persistent and eventually sailing flat will become a habit which you don’t need to concentrate on. It is then a lifetime skill which will give you a permanent edge over most sailors. Sailing consistently flat is the biggest jump in speed most sailors can make, and the cheapest way to increase boatspeed!

All of that practice at sailing with your head out of the boat doesn’t just make you better at spotting windshifts, it also enables you to sail your boat faster as you can better maintain stability of heel. So even a light wind day can be a workout if it is gusty!

Tiller Movement

Your tiller movement should match the pattern of the wind and waves for that day. So if the waves are short and choppy, and the wind is gusty, your tiller movement can be more dynamic. If the water is flat, and the wind steady, your tiller movements should be minimal.

Changing Gears

You need to transition between these states as often as the wind dictates. On a gusty day, you may need to change your rig set-up often, and less so when the wind is more stable. You should aim to be able to change your rig set-up and steering style quickly as the breeze changes whilst maintaining stability of heel.

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Upwind In Flat Water

Rig Set-Up For Height

With flat water sailing, there are no waves to slow you down if you try to sail high. The limit on height is stalling the foils and your sails not working efficiently (because you are sailing inside the narrowest angle to the wind that your rig set-up allows).

This is a trade-off – it is worth losing a little speed for more height. This trade-off varies by class. Generally, faster boats with narrower foils don’t like being pinched and vice versa. So an Enterprise with fat foils and a low speed loves being pinched. A Finn and Lark with thin foils struggle with pinching, and it rarely works in skiffs upwind.

You should be sailing your boat on a ‘knife edge’ of height in these conditions – your foils should be on the edge of stalling. You can always sail higher by pinching more but at some point you will lose flow on your foils and so lose speed and lift. It takes practice at sailing too high to know where that stall point is in your boat across different conditions. With time, this can become an innate skill that you don’t have to think about.

A key point is that you should set up your boat for height mainly through rig set-up rather than steering. The boat should want to naturally sail high or you will be dragging your rudder round if you are consistently slightly luffing to point high.

Smooth Steering

With no waves to steer around, your steering should be smooth on flat water, typically inland lakes or on the sea with a light, offshore breeze. You should maintain a light tiller extension grip and consider adopting the ‘frying pan’ steering style (tiller extension to the aft side of your body) in light winds to ensure really smooth steering. As much as possible you should be using body movement and sail trim to steer.

When To Take Height

Being high and fast is every sailor’s upwind dream. The best time to take height is just before sharp gusts hit so that you...