3 Things to work on Today:

1. Starting execution
2. Downwind lane management (aggressive positioning with wing on/off and taking advantage of DW windshifts)
3. Gate identification/strategy (when do you start talking about gate choice downwind? Make sure you have a plan). What makes one gate favored over another??

-more practice starts. We will attempt to add a real committee boat end, better to simulate a real starting line. Recognize a losing starting position, if in one, early, and bail out immediately to seek aggressively a new, better position. Better to not foul or be over early than to hope for a miracle.

-First beat: Eventually we will let one of the practice starts go to a first beat. Race upwind and work hard to execute your plan for the first beat…. which assumes you have one. If you get a bad start, re-assess plan. Your first beat today is really predicated on how well your start went (which is almost always the case).

–DW Lane Management/Gate Identification Drill. This will be a a lot like our normal DW drill. Difference is, we will line up in 2 separate Follow-the Leaders: odd sail numbers and even sail numbers. Do this yourself. Change your relative position in the FTL each time to give yourself a different experience. The idea is to jumble up the downwind leg. FTL in your 2 groups, tacking and gybing ABOVE the windward mark and offet. When I blow the whistle, the lead boat in each FTL line will round their mark: evens round WM to port, odds round Offset Mark to Starboard, You do not need to time your roundings to be at exactly the same time. You will then race DW to a gate. Choose the better gate for your boat, considering where you are in the fleet. This is the gate that will allow you to finish the race as quickly as possible. That may NOT be the same gate for all boats. Just assess your rounding and where you are in the fleet, and then the drill ends.

We will then do a few practice starts and repeat.