Championship Tactics

Seven times in a row Skip Kempff won the Arizona Yacht Club Championship.
How does he sail so well? Here are some of Skip's tactics.

Download an Acrobat pdf file of this story as it originally appeared in the June/July 2002 issue of Compass Points (2Mb)

By Skip Kempff

Sailboat racing is a process of planing what you are going to do and then modifying the plan based on the wind and actions of other boats. You won’t win consistently unless you can respond to what is happening and incorporate it into what you do.

1. Sailing is a very mental sport. You must be able to take input from the boat, crew, competition, water, wind, history and other sources and convert it into a dynamic race plan. While doing this you need to stay focused on making the boat move. If these last two sentences seem to be in conflict, they are! The key is knowing when and how much to shift between the two. In the first race of the Club Championship I had a brain fade and went to the wrong side of the downwind gate. As a result Rick Gilchrist got ahead going to the finish. My focus became totally boat speed. We were a little to weather and behind to start and gave up some angle to drive over him and then lock him in behind us.

2. Remember “Lake Pleasant Giveth and Lake Pleasant Taketh Away.” The boat ahead of you may stop and wait for you to pass if you will just keep racing.

3. Watch what’s happening on the lake (particularly between you and the next mark). Look at boats in other fleets and boats not racing to see what the wind is doing to them. Are they being lifted, headed, experiencing a wind increase or decrease? Plan your race course based on what you see. Examples:

• A close reach with a little header ahead may require that you sail high of the mark so that you will still lay it after the header.
  

• On a beat/close reach, if the shift is severe enough it may be better to sail a little lower to get to it faster and be in a better position to tack and then lay the mark (this is hard for me to do/recognize).
  

• You can win most races on the lake if you just go where the wind is going to be. For this information I ask Mike Yarnell.
  

4. Remember “what goes up must come down.” On an open reach with some room between you and the next boat behind, it can be very effective to sail straight to the next mark or even below the layline early in the leg. The key is keeping your air clear. When you can do this it sets you up for an inside rounding (on the first reach), gives you greater speed/better angle and clear air coming into the next mark (often the other boats have gone high and are running down, sitting on each others’ wind and going slowly. Don’t sail low if there is a large pack close behind since they’ll take your air and the whole pack will roll you before you can get low enough to clear your air.

5. Spend most of your time steering your boat and knowing what is happening around you rather than making frequent rig adjustments.

6. Practice mark rounding and sail handling. We like to set three marks in a tight triangle and then sail around it for about an hour. With a tight triangle you create pressure to get everything done before the next mark/operation. The pressure causes mistakes and teaches how to cover/correct for them (this is what happens in a real race with other boats all fighting for the same space). In a multi-boat rounding you can gain or lose four or five positions. This is probably the most rewarding thing you can do if it is just you out sailing. Be sure you make several tacks on the beat for that area of practice (roll tacks or just quick sheeting). The more of these you can do without losing speed, the better you’re doing.

7. Know your competition. Determine who is most likely to beat you in the series and keep informed on how they’re doing and where they are. Early in the series you need to race against the entire fleet or you could end up beating the target boat and finishing next to last. It may be necessary to adjust as a series progresses.

8. Don’t allow the boats behind you to sail away from you into good wind you don’t get. Cover them, especially on the last short leg to the finish. The skill you learned on the practice drill can allow you to either keep the boat behind you under your cover or break that of a boat ahead. Don’t lose sight of the rest of the fleet to beat just one boat.

9. HAVE FUN, HAVE FUN, HAVE FUN.
If you must win to have had a great day, you’ll have a lot of bad days, sail alone a lot, or stop racing after a short time. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to win every moment you’re racing. As my Dad said, “Winning isn’t everything but it sure beats coming in second.”