Coach yourself

Taking time out from the race course to have an objective look at your skills can pay dividends. Mark Rushall explains the process

- Mark Rushall

Racing is so much fun that, for many of us, it’s difficult to break out of the habit of using every bit of free time to do just what we love: going racing. For those who don’t race but might like to, there is not always an obvious way to develop confidence in the skills they may need: they rarely see the racers working on honing their skills alone.

This season, as recreational sailors, we’ve been forced to adapt: initially sailing on our own, then informally racing with a few like-minded teams, and eventually if we were lucky, some club racing and even the occasional regatta. It has been a great reminder that there may be better ways to learn and develop sailing skills, than spending all our available time racing round the cans or reaching up and down the same piece of water.

So, why is that? Let’s take a look...

Change can be painful

Many years ago, I visited the club of my youth, Draycote Water, where my father had chartered a club Laser for me to race with him in his Sunday morning race. “I’m losing out on the tacks in a breeze,” he said as we rigged our boats.

It didn’t take me long to work out what the problem was: he was still tacking facing backwards as we both had learned even more years before in Mirror dinghies with transom sheeting.

But could I get the message across or even get him to try something new in the race? Of course not! “Out of my way, son, I’m trying to win the race!”

Obviously trying something new was going to have a detrimental effect on this race and his competitive instinct was way too strong to cope with that.