Almost every sport has training sessions. The purpose is to practice with time to stop and discuss different aspects of your performance. When you compete in a race the idea is to be able to string all of these different aspects together. There’s a natural conflict between learning from your mistakes and racing. From a race perspective stopping and looking back during a race is the wrong thing to do. If you just stuffed up your kite drop, it’s not a good time to discuss what went wrong. You should be focusing on how to do your best for the rest of the race, which is not about what just made the kite drop go wrong (at least, not till your next drop!).
Spending the time to get out with your crew and practice every aspect of your race is key to improving your performance. During this time try changing things up – maybe the way you’ve been doing it all these years can be improved on. Make sure you take the time to review each thing you do – either on the water or afterwards. Action cameras are now cheap and accessible and often provide a different perspective. I know from our use of them there were times when everyone had a theory about what happened, but the camera showed something completely different.
Watch what other people do and getting an outside set of eyes cast over what you are doing. Any issue you are having has been had and solved before! To help you out I’ll be running two sessions in the lead up to the regatta on Tuesday 18 & 25 February. Sessions will start on the water at 6pm and be followed by a debrief at approximately 8pm. In the event of the weather not being suitable, we’ll hold an on shore theory session starting at 6pm. This is a great opportunity to tidy up some of your crew work and get the boat going as fast as possible in the lead up to the regatta. If you intend to join the training please register your interest here. The training is free for RPNYC members and those who have entered the regatta. For others it is $10pp/session.
Craig Ryburn
Wellington Ocean Sports Manager