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Keelboats...

Keelboat sailing requires people to work in teams, often focusing on one small job very well, and trusting your crew mates to be equally good at theirs. It's an interesting team dynamic, so we'll be looking at some of those issues as well as some of the specifics of particular roles on board a small keelboat. Because the speed loss in manoeuvres is not that great in keelboats, the tactical options can be greater than fast dinghies, with more opportunities to tack and gybe around the race course. All things we deal with in the Keelboat section...

Melges 32 fleet battling upwind at Lake Garda

© Carlo Borlenghi: Melges 32 fleet battling upwind at Lake Garda

Featured Articles

  MP3: The right ingredients for winning teamwork with Etchells World Champ Nik Pearson ***
Nik Pearson won the Etchells World Championships doing the bow for skipper Stuart Childerley and Simon Russell working the mainsheet. Every team is different in its make-up of skills, but there are some good general principles of communication here that will work for any sailor looking to improve teamwork in the boat.
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  MP3 - Sailing in bad air is not always a bad thing, says Jonathan McKee ***
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  Communications Loops: essential speed & tactical processes with Robert Hopkins
How a crew talks to each other is one of the things that determines success or failure. Efficient, to-the-point communication is vital if you've got any hope of beating your rivals. Robert Hopkins explains the two essential communication loops that feed through all the top professional racing keelboats these days. This is hot stuff, and relevant to any team boat from two people upwards...
  Why shouting gets you nowhere fast ***
A quiet boat is a fast boat, according to Tom Burnham, the pitman on top TP52 Quantum Racing. Which is why it's good to have a team where everyone knows what's going on tactically - even the musclemen on the grinding pedestals. And a shouty boat is nearly always a slow one. Tom offers some tips for how to reduce the noise - and stress level - on your boat...
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Jero Lomas, Kiwi America's Cup bowman, explains how he calls the start accurately without even using a transit on the shore. After all, as Dean Barker's front man points out, start marks swing back and forth in wind, waves and tide, so is a transit the ultimate way to get a good start? Jero reckons not...
  MP3: Robert Hopkins explains the secrets of Efficient Communication... ***
MP3 (4:30 min): Robert Hopkins has done his career all the 'wrong way' round. In his early 20s he found himself coaching the British America's Cup team Victory 83 through to the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup where they came up against the mighty Australia II. A year later, aged 24, he was head coach of the USA Sailing Team at the Los Angeles Olympics, where the Americans grabbed four gold and three silvers from all seven medal disciplines. More recently he has moved back on to racing teams as a sailor, including winning the TP52 World Championships with Quantum Racing in 2008. SailJuice asked Robert what he has learned about good team communication through his 25 years of coaching and sailing with the very best in the business...
  Big Boat Sails: Buyer's Guide #2
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