On An Educational Mission

At 57, Ed Baird’s list of accomplishments began pre-internet, so you have to be of a certain age to know how long he has been dominant in the sport. Ed remains at the pointy end of performance, and this week he is sharing his observations during a nightly ‘show and tell’ at Key West Race Week. Here Ed explains his mission.

Quantum Sails and Harken asked me to do a daily debrief for the three race courses at the event. Each day we select a course, and I am joined by photographer Keith Brash who brings along an assortment of drones and cameras. Together we try to gather as much interesting footage as possible, and then edit segments that we can share each night with people from those courses.

With the visual presentation, I can provide my observations which hopefully provides the sailors with helpful information. We try to look at the whole course and find things that we think everyone can learn from. This might involve looking at one particular boat and noting their sail trim or pointing out how certain boat handling techniques are impacting performance. With the drone, we can capture starting line situations that are hard for the competitors to otherwise recognize.

It is all very educational, even for me. Sailing is really a lot of fun at Key West and I hope that through these group discussion that people can enjoy the event even more.