Today was perhaps our best day on the water! Just a few puffy clouds in front of a blue Floriday sky! These conditions again made it so easy to learn to sail!
Mercury Mentors
Today, the Mercury Mentors learned a lot about tacking and the points of sail. We had lots of time on the water to practice, so each child had a turn steering around the bay and going through each step of the tack themselves. Thomas and Laith were able to reiterate what they learned in the last week to get Dylan and Lincoln up to speed. Everyone reviewed what we have done in the last week so that they remembered for their long day on the water! We also reviewed the points of sail: upwind, reach, and downwind.
Beginner Optis
The Optis also learned the steps of tacking: 1) look around you 2) step with your back foot 3) push the tiller away from you 4) DUCK! 5) switch sides. This was carried out on the water by setting up a course in which the children must round marks to practice their tacking. They also practiced trimming the mainsheet while steering at the same time. This proves to be especially difficult in an Opti because there is so much already going on. The course helped them with this as well because they had to constantly trim and steer at the same time. We also reviewed the points of sail and how they differ from port and starboard.
Green Fleet
The Green Fleeters had a course set up to continue to get practice in! Coach Stephen put them through their paces with more wind today than any other day of the Session! They worked on knowing when they are on the starting line with a drill that when they think they are on the line they put their hand up. Starting in sailboat racing is the most important part of a race and knowing how far you are from the ‘invisible’ start line is key to being ahead from the very beginning!
420’s
The 420’s learned how to go wing-on-wing today. This means that when they are going downwind, the jib is on the opposite side of the mainsail. The group also collectively learned about avoiding collisions today and how to properly dock their boats. By “swooping” their boats in to the dock (this means to turn up into the wind next to the dock and sliding closer if they approach the dock upwind of it), they learned to comfortably carry through with the first step of derigging their boats. The 420 group also practiced their tacking skills by tacking back and forth in the bay and switching partners to make sure everyone gets the hang of it. They closed the day out by properly derigging their boats and rolling the sails up so they last a long time.
