After criticizing Jake for trying to complicate his life, I am starting a new thread.

I would like to know what books or other media are out there that really discuss the anatomy of sailing. How do you sheet and or steer in a puff, how can you tell if your pinching or footing what should be the combination or sequence of moves to correctly shift gears in the puffs… Things like that.


Sometimes I feel forums like this provide a huge disservice to the new guy learning. There are loads of technical discussions which often have very good responses, but sometimes they have an equal amount of misinformation. The problem is though, they all relate to tuning and not technique of how you actually sail. So many people seem expect there to be a magic formula for how the boat is set up and they will be fast. How can you tell if you are sailing your boat to its potential? One of my mentors told me that rule number 1 in going up wind is that every other boat on the coarse is going to appear to be sailing 5 degrees higher and if you try to match them you will be going very slow – sail your own race. Very good advice, but how do I know what my race is?

I have lost count on the number of times I have seen someone in a race be 1 minute late for the start, get stuck in irons 3 times, flip over, miss every wind shift, sail to the wrong side of the course, and the first thing they ask when they get back in is; What mast rake is everyone using, because they just do not seem to be able to point. (I have been one of these people on occasion also, so I am guilty as well) I have talked to a number of sailing coaches about this, and everyone has said that when critiquing boat speed they are going to be commenting on things like; they were over sheeting or moving the sheet too much, or pinching, footing standing too far aft etc. If you are getting beat in 2 boat testing it is not because your diamonds were set at 39 in stead of 38.

Matt