Maybe it's different levels of the game, I don't know. But...

I've never found resentment to be a proper motivator, at least for myself. You should never resent somebody's success (whether in sailing or in real life) unless it came purposefully at your expense. I find that most people who resent other's performances fail to properly analyze what they can do to better their own performance. In trying to help people in our club that's what I try to emphasize - being able to look at your own performance and try to judge where improvements can be made.

I've found that most people in our club are very happy that the front runners are more than willing to take the time to help them. Unsolicited help is usually low-key, but if somebody asks for more, folks are willing to speak. Note that giving help and advice is different from the other side of bad sportsmanship - the poor winner. The poor winner takes delight in pointing out other's faults in a way that is nothing short of rubbing the loser's nose in smelly stuff. Maybe that is what is being referred to in Mark's comments about nobody wanting hear why the winners won.

I find a lot of times people like to blame the ratings. And again, it's easier to do that than to honestly answer the question as to to whether you are sailing your boat its own rating. They end up resenting a class of boats or the numbers crunchers. You see this in all types of handicap racing.

Getting to the level where you can learn - here's advice I give, hope I'm not breeding resentment! In the early stages of your racing, try to concentrate on one aspect of racing per series. Start with boat speed - concentrate the whole series on making the boat go fast. Next series, concentrate on sailing a good course, next series work on situational awareness, and so on. Soon you find yourself putting all the elements together, and can make good observations on your own performance. After each race/event, write up a little overview of your race to your crew and supporters, highlighting what went good as well as bad. Makes you think about it, and fills in your friends at the same time. Of course, this really works best in a format where you are racing every (or almost every) week.

Protest flags - our club's instructions require sailors to have a flag in order to protest. In essence - No Flag No Foul. We won't consider a protest that wasn't flagged on the water (giving a chance to resolve it on the water).

Loosing the last boats - very important. We race mostly on weeknights and the last boats can get stuck as the sun goes down taking the wind with it. Very frustrating. This is where it is imperattive to help - one way is to help improve their performance so it happens less often. In our open Fleet, it also means that people move up to faster boats in addition to trying to improve their performance. Having a group that can give advice with finding an appropriate boat is helpful too.

Late night blather mode off.