Sail as much as possible on anything. I spent my late elemtary-early high school years (pre chicks) riding my bike 12 miles a day to a marina where my boat was and sailing every day on a little Butterfly scow. That more than anything improved my skills.
I know you're a little too busy to sail all the time, so train your boday and your brain. You already dream about sailing, but visualize how the boat moves through the water and what the sails look like every possible time you can. It makes the actual event second nature. Go over scenarios in your head and believe it or not you come up with some pretty good answers yourself. Talk to your sailing team about situations a lot too. Also, picture yourself kicking some butt. That always makes me train that much harder. I read all of Buddy's books, Bethwait's, Stewart Walker's, DC's, North U (weather, tactics, etc.). Run, walk, hike, ride bikes (any cardio), emphasize abs, back (lower back too) and biceps in your overall workout (and your neck since you're doing the tybee:-) If you train your body, your brain will begin to really take over; it's 75% mental on the water.
A-freakin'-men. I've always felt like I was at a pretty large disadvantage to all you guys because I started sailing only 5 years ago. I feel somewhat qualified to answer this way because I've been slowly getting stronger on the water. I've read everything I can and sailed on everything everywhere I can. I regularly race as crew or skipper and sail with as many different people as I can to try and absorb as much as possible. Last year I sailed/race on a Hunter 23, Nacra 5.2, International Tempest, F18 (four different boats), Nacra 20, and will try to run some club race committee stuff this year (it's amazing what you can see in a race while watching from a stationary point while not worried about sailing). I'm known as a boat-hore. Rick's stuff is great and I still re-read some of the sections from time to time to get my mind thinking about other things on the water. Bethwaite's book has some terrific information about weather/wind patterns and cause/effect too.
I haven't really set out to do on-the-water training but I race so often that it should probably qualify. After each race, review what went right, what went wrong, what the strengths were, and what the weaknesses were. Then come up with a plan to try and overcome the weaknesses by experiementing with different tunings or tactics for the next start or the next race. I don't stay real up-to-date with keeping a log but I do try to keep record of our setup, parameters, and results. Lastly, one-design racing is the best place to learn because you will have more opportunity to race head to head with someone.
While at the gym (6 mornings a week now leading up to the Tybee) and doing cardio on some trainer, I usually close my eyes and focus on sailing, look for wave troughs, reacting to gusts, rounding A-pin on the wire, looking at Team Tybee in front of us while we mow down their lead, etc.
Keeps me thinking and motivated.
