An Overview of the Seminars

The history of the Rick White's Sailing Seminars.

The seminars began in the spring of 1989 with the first catamaran race-training seminar, held in the Florida Keys. It was based upon the popular and successful Olympic training program developed by the Ontario Sailing Centre in Canada. Since then Rick White has made numerous modifications and added many drills of his own in an effort to constantly improve the program. He currently conducts race-training seminars for many varieties of boats, from catamarans to Lasers and Sunfish, and up to E-Scows and the Corsair F-24 thru F-31 trimarans. The Dragonfly trimarans have now been added to this list, and we are open to doing seminars for any one-design classes.

Rick White has raced in many different classes of boats over the past 30 years and has over 180 major championships to his credit. He has written four books on catamaran racing, and the two most recent, Catamaran Racing: for the 90s, (which all applies to trimarans) and Sailng Drills: How to Sail Better, Faster, Smarter, Safer are the most current and complete books on the market. Most of the information also applies to trimarans, and a great deal of it to monohulls, as well.

For many of the seminars, he also brings in a special guest expert, of national or world caliber, skilled in the particular class of boat.

Our seminars take a building-block approach to race-training.

We begin with boat-handling. You cannot go farther if you cannot control your boat in all situations.
• We teach you how to stop your boat, park your boat, and accelerate out of a stop, how to back your boat up, how to get out of irons, how to do a 360 or 720 the most rapidly and efficiently, how to jibe properly, and how to tack without losing speed and momentum.

Then we move on to working on starts. A good start is crucial to getting a good finish.
• We have drills that will get you ON the starting line at the start, that will help you with pre-start maneuvering, controlling your boat on the line, and starting with speed.
• Do you know how to get a transit?
• Do you know how to time the line?
• Do you know how to determine the favored end of the line?
• These are things that the winners do before EACH and EVERY race.

Then we move into mark roundings. Many races can be won or lost at the marks.
• We have mark-rounding drills that will simulate crowded conditions and will teach you how to come out a winner at these very important points on the race course.

And the finish line. That last sprint to the finish can win the regatta if you know what to do.
• Do you know how to determine the favored end of the finish line and the favored tack?

Finally, we cover windshifts and tactics. This is what racing is really all about.
• Do you know the difference between persistent, oscillating and geographical wind shifts and how to use them to your advantage?
• Do you know how to use a puff to your advantage?
• Do you know why you should avoid going to the laylines?
• Do you know how to balance defense and offense on the race course?
• Do you know how to tell whether you are doing better or worse than competitors on the other side of the course?
• Do you know how to tell if you are going to cross ahead of that guy who is approaching on starboard?

We also cover sail trim and weight distribution and how to read telltales, and, when applicable, how to handle spinnakers. And we can tell you how to handle current and waves.

We have special expertise in downwind sailing and downwind tactics.

• Rick White was one of the first pioneers to develop downwind tacking for multihulls in the 1960's, and he is still one of the best in the world at this technique, which also applies to trimarans.

More about the format of the Seminar:

The format is flexible to accommodate local conditions and problems, however, this is the "normal" format:
• All sailors arrive the evening prior to the first scheduled day of seminar. They set up their boats and get them ready to go.

• On that first evening (usually Thursday evening for a three-day seminar or Sunday evening for a five-day seminar) everyone completes registration (pays whatever is still owed), and fills out registration forms, we have a get-acquainted session, introduction to the course, orientation for the seminar (how the drills are run, the schedule, etc.), a brief rules clinic to make sure everyone is familiar with the basic racing rules, and an IN-DEPTH discussion of boat-handling procedures (tacking, jibing, stopping, accelerating out of a stop, backing up, etc.)

• If people are not able to be present for that first evening, we must eliminate it and do all this the first morning of the seminar instead, which cuts severely into valuable time on the water.

As you can see from the attached formats, we usually have only a long half day on the water the last day, getting in by 1:00 p.m., and with the whole seminar ending about 2:00 p.m. However, we can easily adjust and have the first session the moming of the first day and have a full day on the last day. Or we can start on Thursday night as usual and STILL have a full day on Sunday. The reason we plan the schedule the way we do is that many people want to leave early on the last day so they can pack up and get home. As I said, we are very flexible and can accommodate whatever people want.

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