Part 1 - Setting our goals

Well lets get one thing straight at the off; "If you don't train then you will not improve, infact as others improve you will fall further behind."

Ok so just going out racing will help some skills, but this will happen in a rather haphazard way, and our faults will prevent an improvement in results.


All sailors who even remotely take their racing seriously will benefit from a training programme, and the second golden rule is "everybody can improve" absolutly nobody is too old, too skilled, too experienced or too clever to improve, just remember that as others around you improve, as they surely will, you must get better just to stay still, and improve faster than them to get better results.

Lets start in your mind. Close your eyes and remember the best moment in your sailing career, the time you achieved beyond your expectations, try to remember what if felt like, how you were that day, and imagine feeling like that after every race.

Not a bad feeling to have, well lets keep that thought in mind as we decide what must be done to reach that level again.

Now reality comes in, we know we will not achieve that success as we stand at present, we must take action to improve, to increase our performance towards that goal; and herein lies the first trick, we must set ourselves goals.

Goal Setting.
Most people set themselves objectives or goals at certain times in their lives, these take various forms but in the majority of cases are long forgotten when the time to reach them arrives.
When we set a goal there are 5 things to consider, this is SMART.

Goal 1 - To win the UK Championship. This is specific & measurable, we know the event and a win is a win. Is it achievable? well only if we enter the Championship. Is it realistic? well only you know this and if you never get in the top 3 at opens it probably isn't. Is it timed? well only if we say which UK Championship, is it this years or just anytime. This goal needs some work, and a plan will have to be formulated to reach it.

Goal 2 - To do well at the Nationals. Well you should be able to tell instantly that this goal lacks several attributes. It is not specific, measurable, achievable or timed, it may not even be realistic, and yet I bet 50% of competitors at this years Championships will give you this answer if you ask them their aims for the event.

Goal 3 - To win the club summer series. Now this goal is good, it can be said to be a SMART objective, success or failure can be judged against it, but like all goals it could be altered, if we found ourselves failing to achieve top 3 positions in the first half dozen races say, and adjusted to top 3.

This brings me to the final point on goal setting. No goals should be set in stone, if at any time they look to become either unachievable, or too easily achieved then change them to more realistic levels, the benefits and satisfaction of reaching them will only be felt if you had to stretch yourself and actually achieved the objective.

Now assuming that we have set ourselves some goals, both long and short term, and that probably one leads onto success with the next, lets look at the work/training/coaching required to achieve these objectives.

Commitment The first thing to establish is your commitment, do you really want to achieve your objectives, or are we going through the motions? Lets assume you are totally commited.

The Plan Now lets get practical and begin with a plan. The plan will help us achieve something so "Start with the end in mind" This will ensure that everything you do is aimed at reaching your objective.

Sit down and invest some time in analysing your performance. Start with a blank sheet of paper and list your strengths, where is your performance at its peak, it maybe that you are excellent starters, or very fast upwind in strong winds, it may sound strange but look at your strengths first, it should set the standard that you will look for in all aspects of your sailing.
Now, take a harsh look at yourself and list your improvement areas, notice I say improvement areas and not weaknesses, here we are playing mind games, but don't forget so much of sailing takes place in the mind. Take some time creating this list of improvement areas, and be honest, think back to actual experiences and how opponents performed better.

Now we should have quite a lengthy couple of lists, and we must try to prioritise.
From the list of improvement areas you must decide which will produce the largest steps towards you ultimate goal. For example if you are slow downwind in waves, and your goal is to win a particular open on the sea, then this might be considered to give the greatest improvement. However if you goal is to win the Inland Championship this would have far less significance. The decision lies solely with you or you and your crew.

At this point it is worth reminding yourself that there are many aspects to a dinghy race. Not only do you need speed, tactical awareness and good boathandling; but you also require a degree of fitness, a boat that stays in one piece, good communication with your crew and to get to events with time to spare. All of these aspects and others will affect your performance and must be considered.

Now with our improvement areas identified and prioritised we need to decide on how they are to be brought out of the improvement area and taken into the strengths list, so on the next page we will look at some of the possible techniques.

Follow the drills in this book and become a champion! The book covers boat handling, starting races, mark rounding, tactics and finishing. Everyone who wants to improve their racing should read it. Click on the book cover to discover more details.

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