No real big secrets - two fairly obvious things will allow you to do well in a race like this...but while they're obvious - achieving success at them is not necessarily: 1) Boat speed - you have to be up to speed with the pack in varying conditions and points of sail. It's interesting how some teams were really fast in some conditions and not in others. Our largest weaknesses were moderate reaching, heavy air upwind, and light air upwind (moderate upwind was OK). On the day we rounded Cape Canaveral, after our angle to the line cracked off a little, we ran Castrol 2 and Tygart down from a mile back in the 16-18knot breeze. Then it lightened up slightly and Castrol 2 absolutely took off and left us and Tygart by almost a mile. Bouy course racing is a good way to work on boat speed - but you don't get much reaching practice. Speed is the 'easier' of the two.

The hardest thing to learn, which applies readily to bouy and distance racing, is patience. If we fell back in the pack, we never pushed 110% because a capsize in a race like this is costly. We tried to stay fast and safe and have confidence that if we remained relatively mistake free, that we would climb through the pack - and we usually did. I used to get terribly frustrated if I found myself in last place but I try not to anymore. There were times a team was overtaking us but we felt like we were already at 99% so we let them go - most times, they capsized right in front of us. Have the patience and confidence to keep doing what you know is right...ALWAYS go to the correct side of the course, don't push rediculously hard, don't take fliers unless ALL (and I mean ALL) hope is lost, etc. Patience is one of the hardest things I've had to learn.