What about being in the right place at the right time or visa versa? Humm how about, "God wanted it that way" <ducking>

Those boats are seperated because a puff just happened along.

Wouter, on a general level I can agree that you need a certain amont of talent to reach specific goals, like you and Jake have mentioned. But I dont think sailboat racing is at that level just yet. Perhaps Poul Elvstrøm had a special talent for sailing, but the "great dane" himself attribute his success to hard work and lots of thinking.
Calling somebody foolish on a internet forum is indeed foolish..

Jake, I can totally relate to what you say about music. I am one of those unlucky individuals who dont have musical abilities. Without a reference, I am unable to differentiate between two different notes. Asking me to sing a well known song is hillarious for the listeners for the first 30seconds, then they beg me to stop. I would say that I am an exception to the norm, lacking musical abilities (a handicap). You will probably not reach a pinnacle of anything if you are handicapped within your chosen area (excepting Bill Wallace). But looking at the 17 teams who raced Tornados in the Athens games. I dont really see one team as more talented than the others. Roman Hagara and Hans Peter dont win the majority of the events they enter, and neither does any other team. Does this mean that they are all equally talented? I just can not see that. However, I think Hans Peter and Roman use a full four years to prepare for the games, and have a rather large budget to use. They also have the mental abilities to peak at the events that matter the most. I dont think they are more talented than Bundy and Forbes, but they either cope with the pressure better doing less errors, or have prepared better.
Luck was a poorly choosen word. How about randomness instead? Wind is not 100% predictable, there is a random element there. Sometimes fellow competitors also act more or less randomly as well, at least it feels that way on my level <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
If we go back to what Pat said about a 3% speed difference and hold it up to what you say about how people being wired differently, I think the talent probably boils down to a good understanding and feel of keeping the boat in the groove and how to helm efficiently. Finding information about helming techniques, how to use the helm for best speed in different conditions and for different courses is something that is very poorly documented.


Robi, if you are interested, get "Sail, Race and Win" by Eric Twiname from Amazon. It's a book about self coaching and how we set limits for ourself (Erics other book, "Start to win" is also an excellent read).

There's an old joke that goes something like "He doesn't have 10 years of experiance, he's had 1 year of experiance 10 times". Meaning that experiance doesn't mean much unless you can learn and build on it.

I think most of us approach sailing as sort of a rules-based game. We learn settings and tactics from books and other sailors (who in turn learned them from books or other sailors in a chain all the way back to the few greats of the sport), and while there may be a little gee-whiz explanation that goes along with those rules we learn, most of us don't really have a good feel for the "big picture" from which these rules are derived.

Since someone brought up the skiing analogy, there's a term in that sport called the "perpetual intermediate". That's a condition that many skiers get stuck in where they can't improve just by further experiance. They're in a local maximum where in order to improve they need to learn a new style which (at least in the short term) feels unsafe and uncomfortable. Maybe there's a similar local maximum in sailing where you have to go from learning rules to figuring out the rules for yourself.

I think the person at the top of the class is the person who figured out the rules. Most of the rest of the fleet is copying the leader. The difference between a good sailor and a great sailor may not be that huge in terms of elapsed time because the one can just follow the other. But it's awful hard for a good sailor to get in front of a great sailor.

Rolf
I think you need to seperate the olympic teams that are all at the top of the heap and very talented from a middle of the pack Nationals level guy.
I sailed against Bob Curry at the 14's this year. He is very detailed, prepared and very talented. His boat setup is very detailed, but I would bet that he could have switched with me on the water(old boat & sail) and still won almost all the races.
I sailed with Juani Maegli at the 16's this year. He came in second this year behind Enrique for the second straight year. Juani is 19 and naturally talented. He sails mono's in RI now at the high school he is attending. With little or no practice on the 16 he jumps on and is winning races on the second day of the event.
There are people that are just gifted in music, math, science and sports.
The hard working techies can make it to the top ten.
The naturally talented guys win.
They have an intangible that you just can't learn. IMO

Rolf: I want to believe you are right.

As for the luck question, the number of attempts factors in to catching that one puff?

Interesting discussion.

Sailing is probably the most complex sport on Earth, so we can not focus on a single "key" feature that guarantees victories.

A great sailor has to excell in hydrodinamics, aerodynamics, resistance of materials, engineering, practical lamination, composites, maintenance, cleaning, sanding, sewing, legal matters, waves, meteorology, navigation, electronics, physical education, reflexes, teamworking, leadership, organization, planing, cooking, marketing, sales and more. Even luck plays an important part.

It is unlikely that any human being is talented in ALL this. If it ever happens, the talents will not be all at the same level. As a consequence, very talented sailors also need to train to improve his (many) relatively weaker talents.

The 5 P's come from the Armed forces.






She has a talent for learning quickly, and no, if you gave 10 people exactly the same training you would get 10 different results. Each person has an aptitude for different things. They also have different experience before the training is given.

Again using myself. I'll never write a novel as my grasp of english is not good enough, I could learn it, but I would find it very hard. However, I can usually teach myself new programming languages quickly. I also learn Maths quickly. I have a aptitude the the logic and Maths areas, but not for the written or spoken word. I am slightly dyslexic. I don't have a aptitiude (or talent) for words, but I do for numbers and logic.

Another example, My mother was a concert grade paino player, played about 4 other instruments and can cook to an very high standard; she had a lot of training in both things. She also had a lot of education, BUT she cannot spell to save her life. I fundementally believe we are all born with aptiude in some areas and this can help us; I also believe with trainging/learning and hard work, you can overcome this very small advantage (that others have) and still get to the top of a sport or endevor. The aptitude is a very small amount of the equation.

As in many things, you need the innate talent for something. Then you still have to learn the CRAFT that may take years. Only once you've learned the craft, can you soar with your talent IMHO.

I mean, look at Da Vinci or Mozart, for example. Both are recognized as genii in their respective arts. Undoubtedly they had great innate talent and genius. But both had to learn their art by starting to learn the technical aspects of painting, drawing, or music. DaVinci was an apprentice for several years from an early age--painstakingly mixing paints for his masters, or drawing folds of cloth, etc. before he outdid his masters a few years later.

Mozart for many years "copied" the styles of his father's, Bach's or Haydn's music before he took flight with his own creativity and style.

I think a similar concept would apply to sailing. I know a particular sailor who is strong, fearless, and who knows his tech stuff. But he has little talent as a sailor. Instead of working with the force of nature, he fights it constantly. He doesn't even have fun doing it - he always looks like it's a terrible chore. He is not "at one" with his boat, constantly forces things, breaks stuff, capsizes, and so on. Consequently, he will probably never be a really
"great" sailor.

Is that making sense?

If all it takes is hard work and training, why aren't the Olympics all "dead heats"?

But, this is all rather tiring. I'd much rather take my lackadaisical self out on the course; make an honest effort; and count on luck for the occassional significant result! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I get better over time, little by little. For me it's enough! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Maybe they would in an enviromentaly controlled race, everybody gets equal wind, waves, sun/cloud cover + somehow they must all be in the right frame of mind no outside influances allowed.

I would say that hard work and training can overcome "talent" when that "talent" is combined with less hard work and training.

But when you talk about the top it's both. If you take one person who has exceptional "talent" and also works exceptionally hard, as hard as humanly possible, at being great, they will tend to overcome the person who lacks that talent but also works as hard as is possible.

"Luck" is a bad way to look at anything. "Risk" is better. Risks can be weighed, hedged against etc. Talent is the same as luck. Fine reasons to explain why you lost, but there's nothing to those concepts that'll help you win next time. You can't plan for luck, and you can't improve talent. So whether they exist or not is irrelevant.

I am of the opinion that natural talent certainly helps. A "natural" in any sport will do well far more easily in that sport than a not so talented individual. That said, a natural who relys on this and not much hard work etc will find themselves creamed by those who have the disipline and dedication to work on their skills.

In a nutshell:
Talent = Good
Hard work = better
Both = Woooh baby!

Tiger Mike

Neither = Me!

Sorry to break in but the answer is YES. (maybe not vs you personally but you know what I mean). Everybody is different. Some people have excellent hand-eye co-ordination whilst others have exceptional memories or other skills.

In the sailing world boat "feel" is probably the hardest thing to teach - you know that bit where the gust hasn't quite hit yet but you know to start de-powering whilst you know you don't need to with the next gust even though it looks the same on the water.

As I posted a second ago - skills can be learned and if one is dedicated enough to do the hours needed he/she should be able to get to the front of the top fleets. That said, a little natural talent will make the climb to the top a touch easier.

Tiger Mike

Can't speak for other places but here in OZ that is definatly *NOT* an excuse. Many of the coaches and top sailors gladly donate their time to help the rest of the fleet. This also includes olympic grade coaches.

Equipment is also a non excuse. For most of our Tiger fleet the boats are fine. If I were to swap boats with Bundock, the result would be the same. I do understand that there are some classes of boat that don't age quite so gracefully but even then there would be similar results.

Our relevant associations work hard on training for all levels and that also includes the youth squads to train our next champions.

Tiger Mike.

Yup. To paraphrase Chevy Chase in Caddy Shack, "See the wind, feel the wind, be the wind."

Rabbit vs. turtle.

WOW,This is just my view, but Talent is not the same as luck.

It does not take bad talent to be in a intersection while the light is green and be creamed by a driver that runs the red light going the other way. That is just $HIT LUCK

call it what you may, Luck, the will of God it is not:



I am not sure excatly how you can call Risk either luck or talent (if that is what you ment)

to me, risk is an action or decision you make or take
Talent/instinct(sp) is an ability you posess.

Sam

I think of the relationship between talent (or whatever you want to call natural ability) and hard work/practice like a rubber band. Everybody is born with a rubber band of a certain size for a given activity. Practice and hard work stretch the rubber band, but if you start with a small rubber band you have a limited potential for the eventual size. If you start with a larger rubber band you have a greater ultimate potential, but if you don't put in work you can be outperformed by those with less ultimate potential who put in more work. Everyday there are people who have less potential but work harder to come out ahead of people with greater potential. The opposite of that is we all know a person who doesn't really try or put in the work but is naturally better. The kid who always aced the math test but didn't study, can run the fastest, or the guy who never practices or bothers to learn aerodynamic theory or the rules but always beats you around the course.

But, when you have a person with the greatest potential and put in the most work you have Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Glenn Ashby, Darren Bundock, etc. At the other end you have those who are so hopeless in an activity that they can never learn calculus, make a free throw, or round the weather mark first.

Sorry, but we all have limitations. Given infinite access to coaching, time and constant conditions there would still be a front of the fleet and a back of the fleet. With more time some could become the best, but not all.

Eric