Regatta Scoring and Tiebreakers

Last weekend I sailed in a small local regatta with two of my regular sailing buddies, Judy (the Center of Effort blogger) and Eric (Apparent Wind author).  We are all about the same skill level and usually take turns beating the other.  We all went to Cabarete last January for some coaching, and we all hoped to somehow make a quantum leap in our performance this year.  Until last weekend, there were no leaps.

Then on Saturday, Judy leapt.  Her speed downwind was blowing me away, and she was clearly the fastest sailor in the regatta off the wind.  Center of Effort has recently featured interviews and advice on downwind sailing from two of the country’s top laser sailors, Clay Johnson and Ben Richardson.  I read the blogs, but so far, no leaping on my part.  Judy must be a better reader than I, because she has figured out how to transform words into boat speed. 

She beat me by one or two places five out of seven times on the weekend.  The last race on Saturday was out of character with all the others.  I was lucky enough to win the start, get to the first mark with a lead, and hang on downwind, beating a “clearly better sailor” who won all of the other races.  Judy, who had finished second in all of the previous four races, worked the boat a little too hard downwind, capsized, and finished 6^th.

With a 5 point spread in one race our scores suddenly became close.  Judy wasn’t worried because she thought she could throw out the bad race.  I clung to hope by recalling that the sailing instructions had said that all races would be counted.  None of us could find our copy of the sailing instructions, but we were all clear that Judy had beaten us on the day by either scoring system.  The only question was by how much.  The next morning we checked the interim results, and sure enough, there was a throw-out.  I didn’t know whether to doubt my reading skills or doubt the race committee who demonstrated problems with their scoring in previous years.

In my competitive spirit, I told myself all I needed to do the second day was beat her every time and hope there were a lot of races.  It turned out there were only two races on Sunday.  I beat her in the first race by two places and she beat me in the second by what seemed like ¼ mile, but only one place. I congratulated Judy on her second place finish in the regatta.  (The “clearly better sailor” had first place locked up.) I was both happy for her and envious in terms of her substantial improvement in sailing skills.

I didn’t stay for the awards.  Last year, it was a two hour wait.  Judy didn’t stay either and apparently, there were no awards.  Judy watched the internet for final results and on Friday, they were finally published.  There in black and white, the results declared that Judy finished third and I finished second.  Say what??????  How could that be?  For five days (and to this day), we all agreed Judy had sailed a great regatta and had beaten all except the superstar who won 6 of 7 races.

It was as if the Russian figure skating judge had given me an obviously biased perfect score that vaulted me to an undeserved silver medal.  I’m sure we all looked for some giant mistake in recording one of the races, but they were all correct.  But, unlike the interim results, all races were counted in the final scoring – no throw-outs.  The results for second were a tie between me and Judy, and according to the RRS tiebreaking system, I won the tie.

This was disconcerting in two ways.  The first was that, with the exclusion of throw-outs, the rules of the game seemed to change after the fact, and the second was that it is unusual and perhaps unfair that one sailor can beat another 5 of 7 times and lose.

For a race committee to say one thing, do another, and then go back to the first option is unusual (fortunately for me) and gives the appearance that they make up the rules as they go along.  Also, in this case, the scoring system seems arbitrary.  We sail the races, and then someone makes up scores.

The rules in one sense ARE arbitrary.  I coach high school sailing and have some familiarity with college sailing, and each of these have somewhat different methods of keeping score and different methods of breaking ties.

The first difference is the inclusion or exclusion of throw-outs.  RRS has them, high school and college sailing don’t.  (RRS also allows for no throw-outs if stated in the sailing instructions.) More often than not, throw-outs do not alter the regatta finishes, but sometimes they do.

The next difference is the varying tiebreaker hierarchies.

 

RRS tiebreakers

1.       Number of firsts, number of seconds, etc.

2.       Score of last race

College tiebreakers

1.       Head to head

2.       Number of firsts, number of seconds, etc.

3.       Score of last race

High School tiebreakers

1.       Head to head

2.       Number of firsts, number of seconds, etc.

3.       For first place, there must be a sail-off.  For all other places, the tie remains.

Thankfully, most of the finishing places in a regatta are determined on the water and remain the same regardless of the scoring system used.  Beyond that, it would be nice if we could all agree how to score close racing, but we can’t.  Different rules will declare different winners.

RRS has no place at all for head to head results, but they are the first tiebreaker for high school and college.  With no throw outs, head to head seems like a just, clear and decisive way to pick a winner, but when there are throw-outs, there are fewer head to head races and perhaps it is not so clear. 

It was very clear in our regatta last weekend.  The outcome of the battle between Judy and me was determined by rules more than better sailing.

RRS with throw-out – Judy wins by 2 points

College Rules – Judy wins head to head 5-2

High School rules – Judy wins head to head 5-2

RRS with no throw-out – I win it in a tiebreaker with one first and one second to her four seconds

This doesn’t feel like winning.

I can’t even think about high point scoring (AC 45 fleet racing), the high point percentage system, the Cox Sprague scoring system, and the low point bonus point system.

Then there is the Olympic scoring system which shortens the last race (medal race) and counts it double.  The result of the last race is also the tiebreaker.  In a ten boat medal race, the winner would get two points and the last place finisher would get 20 and not be able to throw it out.  Consider an18 point swing when Anna Tunnicliff won gold with a regatta total of  only 37 points.  A gold medal winner could conceivably lose more races head to head, have fewer first place finishes, and win the gold medal based mostly on this one race.  The gold medal winner will be famous, and his/her life will change forever.  The silver medal winner will likely think about scoring systems.

An Incomplete and Non-Scientific Guide to Finding Yourself a Sailing Helmet

Part 1- Where is the Marketing?

Isn’t one of the cornerstones of America culture a rampant commercialism-  the need to sell stuff to people, all kinds of stuff, whether they need it or not, whether they have the money to buy it or not?  Why then, when I truly feel I need something, is no one trying to sell it to me?  Someone is dropping the ball here.

I have been yearning to buy sailing helmet.  Tillerman says helmets are cool.  They make a superior sailing hat.  Volvo ocean racers wear them.  AC 45 crews all have to wear them.  Kids, at the insistence of their parents, wear them to minimize concussions from forceful, unintended contact with a rapidly moving boat part.  There are lots of good reasons.

It’s about time someone started marketing sailing helmets.  I’m not asking that anyone actually give a lot of thought to designing, or redesigning, a helmet just for sailing.  That’s a lot to ask.  Caveat Emptor for the consumers.  But can’t someone just rebrand the helmets they already have and sell them to sailors?  Sailors are curious, if not eager, for information about helmets as they see helmeted sailors in the Volvo Ocean Race and the AC 45’s series.  I’m no expert in marketing, but it seems to me that helmet manufacturers have an unprecedented opportunity to promote themselves as “the” sailing helmet. They need to point out why a sailing helmet is the most urgently needed piece of gear we don’t already own and suggest that their product will best fill that particular void in our sailing experience, making us feel warm and fuzzy all over.  And they need to convince us that helmets are cool.

At first blush, it might seem difficult to advocate the need for a helmet without suggesting that sailing is a dangerous sport, but any good marketer should be able to spin “dangerous” into “exciting and adventurous.”  Any exciting and adventurous sport requires gear, and who wouldn’t want all the great gear that goes with it?

Good marketing associates gear with professionals and their accomplishments.  With the latest wave of prominent sailors wearing helmets, how hard would it be to sell us the same headgear our heroes use?  If the pros use helmets, then I want a helmet too!  One would think the manufacturers would at least utilize pictures of these sailing elites sporting their products.  Gath is the only one I have seen do this.  They have a video of Oracle wearing their hats. (Unfortunately, Oracle has since switched to using a Red Bull advertisement on a Bern helmet.)

The Volvo Ocean Race and the America’s Cup 45 races provide lots of marketing images for manufacturers to use.  Let me help some of the companies who are not helping themselves.  Gath and ProTec seem to be the most popular, but many manufactures are represented.  My apologies for any mistakes in my attempt to play Name that Helmet.

Volvo Ocean Racer wearing  a Gath Retractable Full Visor Helmet

Emeritus Team New Zealand with 3 Protec "Ace" helmets and one Predator "Lee" helmet

Oracle with 5 Gath "Surf" helmets and one ProTec "Ace" helmet

Nathan Otteridge of Team Korea with  a Gath "Surf Convertible" helmet

 Lune Rosa skipper with a Sweet Strutter helmet

Close up of a ProTec "Ace" sometimes used by Oracle

 Oracle's new Red Bull helmets by Bern

 Artemis AC Team wearing hard to find POC "Receptor Bug" helmets

So, where is the marketing?  Isn’t anyone proud that the best sailors in the world use their helmets?

 

If the professional racer/ helmet connection is not enough, what about the beautiful bodies connection?   If scantily dressed supermodels wore helmets while sailing off exotic beaches, wouldn’t you be more inclined to use one?

yarg

Hard Hats

Is sailing crawling along the path of becoming a helmet sport?

Many of us have an immediate, perhaps visceral, negative reaction to the idea that sailing has risks significant enough to warrant the wearing of helmets.  We who have been sailing helmetless for thirty years have a natural suspicion about the idea.  Have we been living on the edge of danger for all these years, and have we been oblivious to the inherent risks of our sport?  Or, are we just close minded about new ways of thinking?

“Concuss”, to injure by concussion, is now a common word in the vocabulary of high school sailors on my team.  When I was a kid in a bike accident that I can’t recall and that accounted for a whole week I don’t remember, I “got” a concussion.  Nothing concussed me, and I did not concuss myself.  There were no verbs.  No connection between an action and a result.

Now, probably as a result of new findings about America’s favorite gladiator-like sport, football, everyone knows a lot about concussions and the acts of “concussing”.  As a coach, I’m annually required to earn a certificate from CDCI showing that I am knowledgeable about concussions and their treatments. I must file a report of every clonk on the head received by one of my students.

On my team, we had one sailor concuss himself in the fall and two skippers concuss their crews in the spring.  Two years ago, we had a full “call the paramedics and go to the hospital” concussion.  In all cases, kids were out of school for a while and out of sailing for weeks.  The first concussed student returned wearing a snowboarding helmet.  It turns out that people are more susceptible to long term injury with each successive concussion and especially susceptible to injury if a new concussion occurs before the first is totally healed.  Concerns over this are now so significant that I bought a helmet for returning concussed sailors to wear for at least a week after they resume sailing.  And over the last few years, I have seen a few kids in high level events sporting helmets.  They were all kinds of helmets - snowboarding helmets, bicycle helmets, hockey helmets, and skateboard helmets.  I bought a kayak helmet, figuring that a watersport helmet would be a better idea.

I have no idea what type it is, but I think this red one is the coolest.

See Tillerman’s collection of other cool helmets.

I remained suspicious that pilot error accounted for our team’s injuries, and that proficient sailors have miniscule risk of injury. Then there was the day at Cabarete when the wind completely died but the waves remained at 4 to 6 feet.  I repeatedly failed to duck as I bobbed in the waves and my boom jumped to and fro. I took several shots to the side of the head.  I was shocked that I experienced concussion symptoms the next morning and had to skip a day of sailing.  Pilot error again, but this time I was the pilot.

And then there is the Lynn Shore incident.  Her very serious clonk may have been pilot error, but not hers, and it may have just been a result of a congested racing situation where all the sailors involved were very competent.

Combining the availability of a helmet and substantial anecdotal evidence that helmets might be helpful, I thought I would try one out.  My initial assumptions were that the helmet would be too hot, generally uncomfortable, make it harder to get under the boom while tacking, and look silly.  (My wife says I look silly in all hats, so not much to lose there.)  The first try was a solo session in wind of 7 – 12 MPH.  The helmet was quite comfy in all respects.  Because of the chin strap and good fit, it stayed in place – a nice change from the baseball hat that I fidget with and sometimes have to rescue after a blow off.  Surprisingly, although the helmet had no bill, it protruded just enough to close the gap above my sunglasses and keep out glare.  And my tacks were no worse or concussive than usual.

Yesterday, I raced wearing the helmet in wind of 12 – 20MPH.  Comfy again.  I even tested it with an inadvertent, but quite substantial shot from the boom.  (Pilot error remains a problem.)  The clonk hurt a little even with the helmet, but I would have seen stars without it.

I’m still concerned that I can’t look like a cool Laser sailor if I wear a helmet.  I will look like a nervous novice or an old guy afraid to die on his Laser.  My friends won’t think more or less of me one way or the other, but my old, sun faded baseball hat and snappy sailing attire might be fooling some strangers into thinking I look like a decent sailor.

All things considered, I don’t want to decide if sailing is sufficiently dangerous to be a helmet sport.  (Let everyone decide for themselves.)  I just want a good hat – one that is comfortable, stays on my head, keeps out the sun, and sheds some rain.  I’m surprised that helmets seem to be pretty good hats by this definition.  As long as they are good hats in all other respects except appearance, they will become more popular.  We will evolve our definitions of “cool” and helmets will be designed to look more “cool.”  Maybe we will individualize them like skateboarders do.  The sport will gradually become safer even without many of us making a philosophical commitment to safety.

It’s pretty “cool” that the right hat can mitigate the consequences of pilot error, so if I going to wear a hat, it might be a hard one. 

Connecting the Lulls

I watched my team have some very frustrating races in a fleet racing regatta on Saturday.  The wind built through the day from about 5 knots to 14 knots, but conditions remained shifty and puffy all day.  Everyone had some trouble with the shifts, finding themselves on the wrong side of them way too often, but the best teams seemed to do a good job of finding the puffs.  Sailing in the puffs was routinely 10% faster and occasionally 50% faster than sailing in the lulls.  Although it was difficult to stay in a puff for very long, even downwind, those who connected the puffs the best were consistently ahead of those who didn’t.

As I watched our best skipper and crew have two uncharacteristically bad races, I wondered how they could be in the wrong place at the wrong time so often.  We’ve all had races like that, but twice in a row? – particularly after 4 solid races at the top of the fleet.  Like most bad races, they began with a poor start.  With as little as two feet to as much as a whole boat length off the line at the gun, there was a guarantee of sailing in dirty air for the first minute or two.  With few opportunities to find clear air, our sailors were stuck in disturbed air until those ahead eked out bigger leads or got a puff and took off. 

I always try to be optimistic about eventually getting clear air, but the truth is there is always a lot of work to do after giving the others a head start.  Fortunately, in lake sailing, the shifts and puffs provide opportunities to gain back the distance lost with a poor start.  Unfortunately, those ahead have the best chance to get those shifts and puffs first.  I’m not sure what our sailors were thinking, but they seemed to forget the concept of “connecting the puffs.”  Even the mid-fleet boats were getting some of the puffs while our team seemed to remain in the lighter spots.  At one point, a mid-fleet boat capsized in a big puff, righted the boat, and remained ahead of our team.

I do not always keep my cool in these instances, and in our post-race debriefing, I told the kids they “did a remarkable job of connecting the lulls.”  I added, “With all the puffs out there, it’s hard to believe you avoided so many of them.”  They thought I was mean.  I thought I failed to give the needed encouragement in a difficult situation.  I could have at least offered the cliché, “Keep your head out of the boat,” but all concerned were just too disappointed to think clearly.

How did it all go wrong?  With a little time to reflect, I think connecting the lulls was caused by a combination of impatience and confusing lulls with headers.  When other boats were sailing higher and faster in the puffs, it was hard to accept that their puffs might soon subside or their wind might shift and remember that the best we could do was sail to the next puff within our own reach.  The lull started to feel like a header (a boat going slowly can’t point as high as a boat going faster), so there was an irresistible temptation to tack.  That subsequent tack in the lull was very laborious and after completing it, the sailors found themselves still going low and slow.  Having completely lost sight of finding a puff, they thought, “It must be another header!” and they desperately tacked again.  Instead of sailing through the lull toward more wind, they ended up spending needless time in the lull.  With a little patience and clarity, they might have spotted the next puff and sailed toward it.  Instead, by doing a couple of lengthy tacks in the lull, they insured that the only puff they would get would be one that found them.  The puffs did not find them.

yarg

Varsity Letters in Sailing

Since sailing became a varsity sport, I get to deal  with the absolutely silly notion of varsity letters.  It’s just so high school.  One more thing to establish bragging rights over others.  One more thing for the college resumé.  One of the benefits of being a grown up is that I shouldn’t have to play high school anymore.  One of my grown up skills is avoidance of uncomfortable situations, so on our sailing team we just award varsity letters to everyone. 

At best, I think about it like awarding Super Bowl rings to everyone associated with the team - everyone contributes in some way to the success of the team.  Making distinctions between degrees of accomplishment or degrees of value to the team seems more often to create bad feelings of inadequacy than good feelings of achievement.  The kids at the top of the pecking order or depth chart know where they are and do not need a varsity letter to feel a sense of accomplishment.  The kids not at the top need encouragement and focus on continued improvement, and do not need an awards banquet that ignores or minimizes them in front of their friends.  They’re teenagers for God’s sake.  Are there any people more vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy than teenagers?

Aside from that sentiment, I can't come up with criteria that are really fair.  First, the different levels are fluid on our team.  Rather than have a so-called varsity sailor sit on the bench for a varsity event, I prefer to give him/her sailing time at the JV level.  (We hold both varsity and JV head to head meets at the same time.)  Some kids sail mostly in JV meets, but do a couple of varsity ones.  Does one varsity event make a varsity sailor?  If not one, how many?  For those who decide to be crews, the pairing up with skippers is more a matter of personalities than skill.  Some pair with a steady varsity skipper and get to sail in varsity events regularly.  Others pair up with a lesser skipper, but the chemistry makes the skipper much better than he or she would otherwise be.  The pairing does not necessarily represent meaningful differences in skill or overall value to the team, especially when considering the long term.  Some freshmen decide to be skippers and almost always sail JV all year.  They are usually more accomplished sailors than the crews who might be sailing in varsity events, but I want them to have that year as a skipper because in their overall development, that extra year at the helm can make a lot of difference by senior year.  For skippers who do events at both levels, who sails at what level depends mostly on the overall talent level of the team, not on the skills of an individual sailor.  We currently have 11 skippers and crews who would have been among the top 4 on the team five years ago.

Our mission as sailing coaches is to help the kids improve their skills and learn about the hard work and sportsmanship associated with sports.  If varsity letters are supposed to be a measure of accomplishment, they miss the mark on every important thing we are doing.  The harm in that is that it sends the wrong message to the kids.  When the measurement is useless, give everyone a prize.  The kids who are stars throughout their high school career are great, but a kid who progresses from just learning how to sail as a freshman to the number one or two sailor on the team by senior year is the bigger success story.  Similarly, the kid who matures into a leader on his team is achieving one of the big picture goals of high school sports, even if he is not the best sailor.  Varsity letters and the lack thereof have nothing to do with the important stuff.  It’s just so high school.

yarg

Washing my Teacup

I went to a friend’s house for dinner and was asked “What have you been doing this winter?” “Not much, but I’m going sailing in Cabarete in about a week.” The subject changed. I was grateful for no further embarrassing exploration of my doing nothing.

Later I wondered if “not much” was really true. On the face of it, it is, but I have managed to keep comfortably busy. Yesterday, it became a little clearer as I was working on yet another basement project – the third of the nothing period. The first was a rehab and rebuild of the high school sailing team equipment – 2 damaged hulls, 6 centerboards and 12 rudders. Grind, apply cloth & epoxy, sand, gel coat, polish; repeat as necessary. The next project was the refinishing of all the mahogany on the yacht club’s 13’ Boston Whaler – sand and varnish, sand and varnish, sand and varnish…. Now, I’m down to an even less significant nothing. I’m refinishing the handles of all the garden tools. My wife laughs – “Who does that? What’s wrong with them?” “They’re rough. They need refinishing.”

Is that it? Has the winter really been that boring and mundane? Well, there has also been the excitement of dealing with lawyers and financial people in the settlement of my little brother’s estate. This included the selling of his good-neighborhood house which received no maintenance for two decades. The “vulture” buying it cheap – no stealing it – has been the most likable, most efficient, most honest person in the whole process. In addition, there has been the out-of-the-blue final settlement of a 12 year old law suit from my last century business. The lawyer’s fee is more than the cost of the settlement, which is not money, but just some more legal work. And finally, there has been my work on something truly worthwhile – compiling all my high school sailing educational material to put it on our web site for reference. In doing so, I discovered more stuff to be written and illustrated – about 150 diagrams worth. PowerPoint is wonderful, but my back is killing me from sitting at the computer for a few weeks.

So yesterday, as I was sanding and varnishing shovel and rake handles (why do I have so many shovels and rakes?) , I was thinking that this was the best nothing I’ve done all winter. I was listening to my music (as if we own it now-a-days), mostly from the 70’s and no longer cool, and marveling at the degree of unimportance I had sunk to. Who does this? Who cares about shovel handles? Who tries to perfect varnishing techniques on shovel handles? Who even uses shovels in the age of hired landscapers and processed food? I won’t even use most of these tools….. Yet, I love knowing that those handles will be good for another 10 years – and then they can be refinished again.

I’m doing my own humble, unenlightened version of the Zen monk washing his teacup. I am remembering the wisdom of the Tao – by doing nothing, all things are done. I’m glad the shovel handles will be shiny and smooth and that no one cares.

But now I’ve gone and written this, and suddenly it all feels like it’s more something and less nothing. Will I ever get to the least little bit of enlightenment?!

21st Century Chalk Talks in High School Sailing

When there is no longer enough time in the sailing day to teach sailing in the preferred format, what is the best alternative? Can you take a little time from each part of the universally accepted “best practices” structure – direct instruction (chalk talks), rigging, sailing, de-rigging, and debriefing – and make it work? Call me skeptical, but after years of trying, I don’t think I can make kids rig or de-rig noticeably faster. I also don’t think I can take much time from my 5 – 10 minute debrief. If I could explain any of the things I cover in chalk talks any quicker, I would have done it by now. That leaves shortening the sailing time…. Really? To shorten the sailing time significantly seems tantamount to giving up on the idea of a quality program.

How did I get into this mess? A little background……..

I have been coaching high school sailing for a number of years now and have always enjoyed the freedom to structure our schedule of practices and events in whatever way seems to work best. There has always been a need to strike a balance between how much time (and fun) we are allowed to have sailing and the academic and other demands of students’ schedules. Until now, the coaches, students and parents have been able to work out a schedule that works well for the overwhelming majority of those involved. No more.

Now, the principal has imposed limits on the amount of time devoted to sports. Two years ago, he and a certain faction of the school community succeeded in changing the schedule of the school day, pushing the start and finish times almost an hour later. The idea is that the late schedule may be more in sync with natural teenage circadian rhythms (sleep cycles), thus getting them more sleep. Dinner time has not changed in most households, so after school time has been the part of the day that has been truncated. While those involved in sports could see the writing on the wall and voiced their concerns, the late start faction promised cooperation in making things work. Turns out, year one worked well enough for sports programs shortened by 0 - 20 minutes but other after school/before sports activities were hit harder. In year two, the pendulum (axe) is swinging the other way and time for sports is getting cut even more, with the same mandatory time constraints being imposed across the board for all sports. Doesn’t matter what happens to the sports programs. Doesn’t matter how the kids feel about it.

Why does modern life so often come down to choices between the lesser of evils?

After thinking carefully about the specifics of our program and our collection of kids, my approach is to eliminate the standard chalk talk from our standard sailing day. That should allow the other parts of the day to remain intact. But I can’t really live without the content covered in the talks, so I have to provide it in a variety of other ways.

The first thing I have done is explain the schedule restrictions, and my adjustments to them, to the team, and ask for their cooperation in reducing the usual chaos that comes from dealing with a group of 30 teenagers. In lieu of daily verbal explanations to the group, boat assignments and the day’s activities are posted before practice begins. Three minutes after report time, boat and crew assignments are adjusted for any unexpected absentees. There is no more waiting for late comers, and those who are tardy may lose their boat or crew or both.

Sailors are expected to handle rigging and getting out on the water on their own. Boats are assigned to the same skipper every day and hardware issues are dealt with after the previous day’s practice, not during rigging time. Freeing myself from the boat mechanic role allows me to communicate with individual sailors about the drills or other special concerns. We do this as we rig.

We are lucky that we have a good balance between skippers who were on the team last year and new freshman (most with some sailing experience) who can crew for them. Experienced skippers give me confidence that each boat can be handled with enough skill to ensure safety in all but the most severe conditions. The experienced skippers can also serve as teachers and mentors for their freshmen crews. Another advantage of veteran skippers is that they have done most of our drills before and therefore require little or no explanation.

For teaching new skills, I have two options. On days with no wind or too much wind and there is little or no sailing time, I will do a long chalk talk. Hopefully kids can connect that talk to the sailing despite the separation in time and space. The other option is to communicate electronically with whatever material I can produce or find. So far I have used Youtube videos, US Sailing videos, documents scanned from books and other paper handouts, sailing websites, original text, original Powerpoints, and photos. I would love to use some of the CD ROM and DVD material I personally use in a classroom setting, but I think there are copyright laws to discourage this. I also haven’t quite mastered the technology required to do it. I feel like I’m teaching at Phoenix University.

I have several first impressions of this methodology. I am very impressed that the kids have embraced the demand for more personal responsibility. Tardiness has all but vanished and they have been very good at advance notification of absences. (It seems that telling them they absolutely cannot practice before a certain time causes them to show up early and start rigging.) Kids are doing a better job of taking care of their boats and fixing things before they break. I have relinquished the job of crowd controller and cat herder and focus far more on giving individual attention to those who follow all the instructions and work at developing the skills. The vast majority of the kids are taking advantage of this.

On the other hand, I still worry that the freshmen are not getting enough basic instruction. This methodology would never work with a preponderance of new sailors. I worry that many people do not absorb the material as well when presented this way. I worry that questions aren’t being asked. I worry that some may simply ignore the electronic presentations and therefore, that I have little sense of what they know and don’t know. And lastly, I worry that the “go go, hurry up” version of sailing reduces the social connections between sailors.

Much of the time we used to “waste” was spent making friends, and that, after all, is what keeps most of us sailing.

yarg