Improve your weeknight race results

The good thing about a long summer of weeknight racing is the chance to improve from week to week. Report by Jonathan McKee for Sailing World:

Sometimes our sport can be frustrating, while other times everything just falls into place. I experienced the latter one recent evening while racing my Aero dinghy. This particular Thursday-night race featured a classic 12- to 18-knot southerly blowing off Shilshole in Seattle. The tactics can be tricky in this wind direction, but it is understandable and intuitive to someone who has raced these waters for 50 years. This night favored the right side of the racecourse, and I managed to clue in to that.

My upwind speed is usually not great, but this evening, I got the sail flat enough and worked on steering precisely to control heel, and I was in the hunt. One thing that really helped was spending a solid 20 minutes going upwind and downwind before the race with another boat. I burned a bunch of my limited energy, but I got myself in the groove. It helped that the waves were skewed and moderate, so staying fast was not that hard, as long as I could hike effectively. – Full report