Even Moses needed a cheat sheet

At the undergraduate college for the United States naval service, the U.S. Naval Academy prepares young men and women to become professional officers of competence, character, and compassion in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

To achieve their goal, the academy uses offshore sailing for team building, small unit leadership, and seamanship skill development. Bary Gately shares some tips that proved helpful for the students but would also work beyond the uniform:

While coaching the Junior Varsity Offshore Sailing Team (JVOST) at the United States Naval Academy, we were presented each fall with prospects who were, politely stated, highly inexperienced. The first week of practice was Basic Sailing 101, known to instructors everywhere.

Luckily for us coaches our midshipmen were intelligent, motivated, and highly curious. With practice 2 to 3 hours a day, five days a week throughout the season, we were in short order able to pile on all the various topics that turn sailing from a recreation to a competitive sport.

But we noticed at some point during the semester there seemed to be regression in situational awareness and a collective forgetfulness or ignorance of sailing smart. At this point we presented to the group four reminders I “borrowed” from competitor and coach Alan Terhune and elevated to our Golden Rules:

1. Where is there more pressure?
2. Which tack aims us closer to the mark?
3. Are we in a clean lane?
4. Is the boat going fast?

With this refocus we found that the group made smarter decisions and the competition becomes more focused and interesting for all concerned. Even smarter are those skippers who assign one rule to each crew to keep in mind and report around the racecourse on top of their other boat handling duties…

For myself I keep a laminated copy of the Golden Rules on hand for lectures or debriefs and also taped to the console of the coaches boat – a reminder that before I go blathering on about some minutia of a mistake, did they fulfill the checklist above?

I keep my hubris in check by remembering that even Moses needed a hard copy printout so he would not forget the “rules” as he made his way down from the Mount.