Alright, last practice of the season! Sad, but should be a good one. It’s looking like we’ll have a nice little easterly. I want to work on two drills that we’ve done before which can really be good in lighter wind. Also, a game I call Sumo Sailing. Let’s try to take off from and land on the L-dock.

We’ll begin with a quick follow the leader to gather everyone. Then, going up the river, we’ll do either tacking or gybing on the whistle. Upwind, 3 whistles starts the drill, and from there on means stop or start. 2 whistles – do a 360. 1 whistle is a tack. Feel free to skip a tack or do an extra in order to re-join the group.

Downwind, 3 whistles is stop/start, 2 is go from a reach to a run or a run to a reach, and 1 whistle is gybe. We really want to get good at the rolling aspects of the tacks, gybes, and going to a reach. Other learning goals are to make sure we come out of the tacks right at close hauled, to control our steering and our main through the gybe, and to adjust to wind-shifts on the reach or run.

Sumo sailing is a team drill, we do inside of a box course. The goal is to force the other team out using the ROW rules. I will blow a 3-minute start sequence and the game begins at go. The team entering on port can enter ten seconds early. I’ll describe this again on the dock.  See you on the L-dock at 6pm.