Author: Gavin Dagley

Publisher:

Published: 2020-06-18

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780648899204

Think Fast, Sail Faster started out as a series of articles published in the U.S.-based Sailing World magazine called "Conversations with the Doc." This book expands those original ideas into a comprehensive rethink about how we understand sailboat racing, and how the way we think affects racing performance. The book represents a fundamental reconstruction of many of the core concepts of sailboat racing. Here are some of the innovations: "Feel" is a central theme. "Feel" often receives relatively little attention in sailing texts, but is one of the most important factors in sailing performance. How we think about sailing conditions has been re-designed. The new classifications of wind conditions (fragile, powering up, depowering, too-much) require the sailor to focus on the boat itself rather than focusing outside the boat and trying to guess whether the conditions might be "light," "medium" or "strong."Wind strategy has been substantially overhauled. The usual classification system for wind shift patterns has been extended into four new groupings. These ideas, combined with explanations of "wind sense," enable sailors to make direct connections between what they see and the best strategies for winning races.Other novel topics include: three-phase oscillating breezes; the "no-brainer" race; the eight standard port/starboard crossing strategies; how to not use a compass; explanation of offshore breeze patterns; the complexities and misinformation about sailing in current; a complete sail racing performance model; psychological performance issues; how risk management and wind strategy combine; and how to build your own wind forecasting system.Finally, these ideas are presented as conversations between the Doc and his fictional friends, rather than as lists of instructions. Throughout the text there are margin notes, and at the end of each chapter there is a simple summary of the main ideas.