Upwind tactics

In part three of our series Olympic 49er silver medallist Ian Barker gives fellow 49er sailor Andy Rice his top tips

Because tacking in a fast skiff like a 49er or 18-footer is such a penalty, it means your tactical options are more limited than in slower conventional boats. This doesn’t mean that tactics are less important, just that there are fewer decisions to make. So when you make a decision, you’d better make sure it was the right one!

This is not such an issue in light winds, where the amount of distance lost in a tack is perhaps no more than a boat length, but in strong winds the loss can be anything up to 10 boat lengths. So the strength of the wind can have a big effect on your strategy for the first beat. If it is windy, it might pay to start on port tack just so that you only have to do one tack to the windward mark, rather than the minimum of two if you start on starboard.

This is not always easy in a high quality fleet like the gold fleet finals of a 49er championship, but in a fleet of mixed quality there should be more room on the start line for you to make your port tack approach. It doesn’t matter if you duck a few transoms, as you’ll be more than saving the time lost when the other boats do their extra tack.

Doing your homework
Of course, all the usual information-gathering that you would do in any boat still applies to the skiff – the wind shift pattern, any geographical factors that could cause a wind bend, tide or current, start line bias and so on. Remember that wind strength is probably one of the most important factors in a skiff when it is planing upwind. This makes finding the best breeze even more important in a skiff than in slower boats, with other factors such as start line bias and tide taking slightly more of a back seat.

It’s very common for there to be more breeze hanging up on one layline, on the sort of landlocked courses that we tend to do in skiff events. In this situation all the old textbook stuff, about avoiding getting out to the edges of the course too early, go out of the window. If your pre-start research has shown that there is consistently more breeze hanging on one side of the course, then make a beeline for it. The great thing about skiffs is that overstanding the layline is not usually too much of a penalty as the increased speed justifies the extra distance sailed – the absolute opposite of a keelboat where overstanding is usually tactical suicide.

Banging a corner
So if you think the right hand side is favoured, then a port tack start with a view to one-tacking the beat could pay big time. And the chances are there won’t be too many others doing it, at least not until they’ve seen you make it pay. There’s a lot of sheep mentality even at Olympic level, but I’ve never been afraid to bang a corner, so long as I’m happy that it’s the right one.

If the left hand corner is paying, then life gets a lot harder as you’ll be racing against everybody else to hold a clear lane off the start line on starboard tack. There’s something to be said for getting the pin end position, as you’ll be able to put your bow down and go for pace, rather than getting caught up in the pinching battle going on to windward of you. The trouble is, you’re probably not the only one with ideas of pin end glory, so expect a battle to claim the spot.



The first cross
Of course the ideal position after your perfect start is that you’ll be able to tack onto port on the layline and cross the whole fleet. But assuming that this won’t always the case, and that you’ve merely done a reasonable job of holding your lane, the next decision is when to tack across. As you start to get close to the port layline, say three-quarters or more out to that side, it’s best to be the first to tack onto port, even if you have to duck a few transoms. By the time you’re halfway through your tack, it will be too late for the others to respond, so you should be able to foot the boat off for some speed and gain a few crucial metres of distance, before the rest of the fleet starts flipping onto port.

Normally, as soon as one goes, the rest go. And certainly, you do need to keep your eye out for someone making the first move onto port, and tack as soon as you’re confident of having a clear lane into the mark.

Communication
All this fast thinking means you’ve got to keep the crew well informed of what your plans are, especially when there are three of you on an 18-footer. When you’re closing with another boat upwind, and not sure if you can cross, especially with tillers and wings hanging off the boat, then you’ve got to keep everyone up to speed with the bigger picture.

The traditional role of the crew as tactician is not so clear in boats like the 29er, 49er or 18, where it is more typical for the crew to be working the mainsheet. I wouldn’t say there is any hard-and-fast rule about who is the ‘tactician’. Simon Hiscocks and I had a similar view on tactics, but because he was busy pulling rope, the decision-making tended to come down to me. But the McKees sailed the opposite way, with the crew doing tactics and mainsheet. If you sail your boat with a lot of different people throughout the year, it might make more sense for you to take on the tactics for consistency’s sake.

Compass
A compass could help with the tactics. I’d say I used it about half the time, although I certainly wouldn’t be interested in anything less than 5 degrees. The real time it’s useful is when you’ve been coming around the leeward mark with all the shit fight of getting your kite down. Once you’ve broken through the dirty air, you can look at the compass to see how the heading relates to the numbers you were getting on the previous beat.

Modes
To be able to make the most of your tactical genius, you need to know how to sail the boat in different modes. There’s normal mode, and there is either pinching or footing, which will probably take up about 50 per cent of your time in a competitive fleet or shifty, gusty breeze – when your tactical acumen is most needed.

Generally, when you’re coming off the line, you’ll be in pinch mode because everybody else is. It can pay to be one of the few boats on the course that actually has the option to put the bow down and let it rip, but on the first beat, the only way you’re likely to be able to do that is if you’re the pin-end boat on starboard, or blasting out to the right on port tack.

The other thing to think about with the mode of sailing you’re using is hooking into the bands of breeze coming down the course. If you can see a band of breeze above you, then it might pay to pinch the boat to catch the gust and hang on to it for longer. If you can see a band of breeze ahead of you, then you’ll reach it faster by footing towards it.