Daily Lift - Teaching Tough Topics Part II

Love Your Students, Love Your Material

• Be enthusiastic and students will follow your example
• Believe in your students and they will believe in themselves
• Always give feedback to each person
• Learn Names!!!
• Inspire Confidence! BE IN CHARGE!!

Daily Lift - Teaching Tough Topics

Are you teaching skills all at once? Here are some tips on how to break it down into bite-size pieces: 

• Make things parallel to regular life
• Remind students that errors are expected
• Limit jargon until students understand what things to do
• Think outside the Sailing Box for examples!

Daily Lift - US Sailing Race Administration

Did you know that a total of 73 US Sailing Race Administration seminars and workshops were held throughout the country in 2011? Find out more about how you can participate today! http://raceadmin.ussailing.org/

Daily Lift - Penalty Turns Continued...

Boat T’s protest is disallowed. Rules 44.1 and 44.2, Penalties at the Time of an Incident, permit a boat that has touched a mark to take a one-turn penalty by getting "well clear" of other boats as soon as possible before promptly making one turn that includes a tack and a jibe . Boat Q properly complies with rule 44.2, and is exonerated for touching the mark.

Daily Lift - Penalty Turns

Boat Q touches the windward mark. Instead of bearing away around the mark, Q continues on a close-hauled course for a few boat lengths. When well clear of the other boats, she promptly executes a penalty turn and continues racing. Boat T protests her for not doing a 360 degree turn immeditately after touching the mark. You are on the protest committee; has Q fulfilled her penalty obligation appropriately? Come back tomorrow for the answer!

Daily Lift - Safety at Sea Seminars

Did you know that more than 1,000 sailors were certified through US Sailing’s Safety at Sea Seminar program in 2011? Go to the offshore page on the US Sailing website to learn more! http://offshore.ussailing.org/SAS/Seminars.htm

Daily Lift - No Wind Idea

Jr. Sailing no wind idea: relay race. Make a list of activities such as, knot tying, boat rigging, rolling sails, chart navigation, and terminology quizzes. Once you have created your list, break your students into teams and begin! You can create as many or as few events as you would like, and vary them depending on the skill level of the students.

Daily Lift - Rules Quiz Answer

No, Boat X does not break a rule. Rule 50, Setting and Sheeting Sails, does not require the tack of the spinnaker be in close proximity to the outboard end of the spinnaker pole when it is in use.

Daily Lift - Rules Quiz Question

Boat X rounds the windward mark to begin the run. She immediately sets her spinnaker but for several minutes the tack of the spinnaker is at least two feet from the outboard end of the pole. Has X broken any rule? Come back tomorrow for the answer!

Daily Lift - US Sailing Courses

Looking to take a US Sailing course? Visit: http://training.ussailing.org/

Daily Lift - Golden Rule of Safety

The golden rule of boat safety, particularly when in a situation involving a capsized boat, is STAY WITH YOUR BOAT.  The boat will in almost all situations float, is easier to identify than a person swimming in the water, and the shore is typically much further away than it appears to the naked eye.

Sailing Games - Optiball

Optiball:  Set up two gates opposing each other using two anchored buoys per gate as end zones.  Set the gates so that boats sailing between them are on a beam reach.  Organize your sailors into two equal teams, and place a fifth buoy with no line or anchor attachment and put it in the middle of the playing field.  Sailors may take the buoy in their boats for up to 10 seconds at a time before tossing the buoy into open water (hopefully in the direction of a teammate), and the same sailor may not pick up the buoy until another sailor has picked up the buoy first.  Crossing the opposing team’s gate scores a point.  The other team then starts with the buoy, moving it in the opposite direction.  This is a great opportunity to develop teamwork, teach racing rules, and have a lot of fun!

Daily Lift

The race committee’s action to score Boat X OCS is upheld. Rule 28.1, Sailing the Course, requires boats to “start”. The definition of Start states that “A boat starts when, having been entirely on the pre-start side of the starting line at or after her starting signal, and having complied with rule 30.1 if it applies, any part of her hull, crew or equipment crosses the starting line in the direction of the first mark.”No mention is made of “normal position.” Because X did not have her hull, crew and equipment entirely on the pre-start side of the line at or after the starting signal, she failed to start. Under the rule A5, Scores Determined by the Race Committee, the race committee has the authority to score X OCS without giving her a hearing.

Daily Lift

Immediately before the starting signal, the crew on Boat X hikes out and momentarily extends his arms straight out over his head. At the starting signal his hands are on the course side of the starting line but the boat’s hull is behind the line. The race committee signals an individual recall, and subsequently scores X as OCS (On the Course Side) because she did not return to the pre-start side of the line and start thereby breaking the rule 28.1, Sailing the Course. X requests redress under rule 62.1(a), Redress. At the hearing, X claims that the race committee has erred in that her hull was behind the starting line at the starting signal, and her crew’s hands were not in a normal position at the time. You are on the protest committee; how would you decide this?

Daily Lift - Jessica Mohler

"The skipper constantly adjusts to the breeze by looking at the tell tales and trimming the sails, adjusting to the environment so that the course is maintained. Parents need to do this with their child in sport as well, knowing your child's strengths and weaknesses as they grow and change is important as you provide guidance through all of life's headers and lifts." -Jessica Mohler

Daily Lift - US Sailing Race Administration

Did you know that a total of 73 US Sailing Race Administration seminars and workshops were held throughout the country in 2011.

Daily Lift - Dave Perry Racing Tips

Dave Perry on laylines: tack about a minute before the layline. You are far enough under the starboard layline that there is little reason for a crossing port tacker to tack right on you. If a port tacker is just slightly ahead, you can wave them across so they don’t leebow you.

Daily Lift - Dave Perry Racing Tips

Dave Perry highly recommends getting a line sight unless you are 100% certain that you are starting right at the boat.  This is a simple and highly effective tool that is often overlooked by some of the best sailors.

 – Winning in One Designs, Dave Perry, p.88

Daily Lift - US Olympic Trivia

In the 24 modern Olympics that a sailing regatta has taken place, how many times has the United States finished with the largest overall medal count in Sailing?  Come back tomorrow for the answer!

Daily Lift - 7 Golds in the Star

Did you know that the United States has taken the gold medal seven times in the Star class since 1932? US Sailing Team Members Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih are a part of a great sailing tradition in what could be the Star's last appearance in an Olympic Games.

Daily Lift - Sailing in the Olympics

Did you know that “Sailing” was known as “Yachting” in the Olympics until 1996?

Daily Lift - 10 Years for Amanda Clark

Amanda Clark is competing for the United States in this summer’s Olympic Games as a skipper in the Women’s 470 Class for US Sailing Sperry Top-Sider.  Did you know that she was a member of the US Sailing Team for ten years before getting her first birth to the Olympics?  Clark first made the team in 1998, where she competed in the singlehanded Europe Dinghy class.  In 2001, she switched over to the 470, and qualified to represent the United States in 2008.  She returns to the Olympics again this year with new crew, Sarah Lihan, and is aiming to take a spot on the podium.