Inside the tactical Mind

by David Flynn, Quantum Sails
There are four components that factor into a tactician’s strategic guesses: predicted weather, current, local knowledge, and observed conditions. Of the four, weather and local knowledge are often said to have the least value. While of more impact in distance racing strategy, weather reports generally are thought to be relatively useless in short course racing. Local knowledge is a two-edged sword that often bites back. Let’s take a look at all four and see how they might factor into a strategic plan.

Weather
The only thing wind models like the GFS or HRRR, NOAA weather, the weather channel, and newspaper or TV reports make you sure of is that there will be weather. Each suffers from two problems. First, they cover too large an area to tell us what is going to happen in a two-mile rectangle. The second is timing. In general, most weather sources are correct about the overall trends and conditions. They falter when it comes to when. They just can’t tell you what will happen in the one to two hours that it takes to sail a race. – Full report