Thanks to Krsysztof for coming down from Edmonton and coaching this weekend.  We had a wide variety of conditions and got a lot of good boat handling work done.  Look forward to John R. coming out to coach Saturday of next weekend!!

I have two things to share with you today, the first is a movie that I made about the rules behind Tacking, specifically Rule 13 and Rule 20.  The Racing Rules of Sailing are available for free in PDF from on the ISAF website.  If you want the CYA prescriptions, you need to buy one of those little coiled red and blue books.

I would recommend picking up an illustrated book that spells out the Racing Rules of Sailing and they should be cheaper because we are right at the end of a quadrennial so the rules are due for an update.  Reading these books is a good way to get a good feeling for what the rules are in all sorts of situations, although they do not always explain how the RRS leads to this knowledge.  My intent with this video is go get right down to the RRS to see exactly why the rules mean what they do.  As a result this movie can be a bit wordy and technical at times, so again, bring your questions to practice and challenge yourself to take a deeper look at how the RRS work.  Once you start to understand why the rules work the way they do and you can refer to the rule book to clarify technical rule questions instead of having to ask a judge or a coach, it is incredibly empowering and it will improve your sailing because of your increased confidence.

The theme of Tuesday's Race Team Practice will be Mark Rounding, but I didn't have access to enough good mark rounding footage to make another detailed skill breakdown like I did with Tacking, so I thought that I would use this week's movie to finish up Tacking.




Correction:

I have so far found one problem with the movie, please comment if you find any others.  I mentioned that a continuing obstruction is the same thing as an obstruction that can only be passed on one side.  It is possible that a continuing obstruction could only be passed on one side, but that does not make the statement true.  Especially since for example the Sailing Instructions might specify that a big government buoy must be passed on a certain side.  That buoy could be an obstruction but is not a continuing obstruction.

The second thing that I wanted to share was a fitness routine that has trickled down through Royal Victoria Yacht Club from their 470 National Team Athletes.  I am not advocating that we all stop out routines and try this one, but I was asked to post it and if it motivates you to start working out, then go for it!  This document was written for people who already understand the workout and the nick names for the exercises involved, so talk to me if you would like it explained.