Last practice today. We’re going to work on starting practice and boat-handling. We’ll start with the starting practice, then do some boat handling, then return to the starting practice again.

The starting drill will be a starting line with a ~20′ section per boat. You’ll get assigned a section, and have to stay in it between 20 seconds and go without tacking. We’ll use a 2-minute starting sequence just to keep things rolling.

Our next drill will be the Bow up-bow down drill. Same start line. Three whistles means luff up hard and stop your boat, but be ready to bear away and accelerate. Two whistles means bear away and accelerate. Consider this to be about 15 seconds before the start, so you only have a few seconds to get up to full speed. Use all of the tools in your box to turn as well as to slow or accelerate your boat.

Once we get sick of this, we’ll do a little upwind sailing and practice tacks. The two keys for the tack are 1. not turning so hard you stop your boat (start the tack as if you were shooting the finish line or windward mark, and then continue past head to wind), and 2. coming out of the tack on a close hauled course.