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**Advanced Dinghy Racing Tactics**
Published 2023-05-29; Updated 2024-05-29This article contains notes for dinghy racers who are comfortable with their boat handling in all conditions and with the racing rules. It focuses on advanced techniques for ILCA (Laser) style catboats primarily in one-design or highly similar design races.
This article is a collection of notes from my coaches and online videos for techniques I'm working on myself. So, it is less polished and more frequently updated than other articles.
I find that upwind legs in waves are the most physically demanding part of dinghy racing and downwind leags are the most mentally demanding. Upwind you're making minor course adjustments and deciding when to tack, but are hiked out hard and constantly shifting weight and steering aggressively on waves. For downwind, the body position is relatively less exhausting, but there are many viable courses and many factors to balance, such as wave sets, lanes from behind, puffs, nuanced sail trim, when to gybe, and gate mark choice. A long reach is rare to find on most courses but fun, uncomplicated speed in comparison to upwind and downwind.
Your "lane" is the space from your sail pointing upwind and tilted slightly in the direction of your boat's present motion. That's where your wind comes from. You need that lane to be empty so that you have undisturbed wind.
Note that the angle changes slightly as you change speed.
At the start, you are maneuvering to begin with an open lane. You then want to maintain it as much as possible. Upwind, the leaders have the most control over lanes and are defending them. Downwind, they are vulnerable after the rest of the fleet has cleared the mark and is intentionally blocking their lanes to close the gap.
If you don't have a clear lane within five boat lengths of the start it is time to tack out of the position and get away from the fleet. As the fleet progresses to the left side of the course on starboard your position will rapidly degrade. Tacking away late means that you get caught between the closed lanes of the starboard fleet as well as the closed lanes of the early-exit port fleet.
Small waves (period shorter than the boat):
- Use upper body movement and aggressive tiller movement on waves to keep the bow attached to the water but not plunging in
- Try to steer for the flat water between wave sets
- "High mode" in flat water: pinch up, weight forward, sheet in all of the way hike hard to keep the boat flat
- "Low mode" to punch through waves: fall off a few degrees, weight middle/back, ease the sail, allow a small amount of leeward heel. You may hear the phrase "bow down" in this context--it refers to down off the wind, not vertically down digging into the water.
Big waves (period longer than the boat):
- Diagonal up wave: Bear off the wind up the wave, weight back to lift bow and increase speed
- Straight down wave: Head up when riding the wave, weight forward to stay connected and pinch
Gusts: ease, hike, trim
Lulls: move weight in, coast forward
Keep knees together and always be in a position where you can shift your weight in/out as well as fore/aft. In light wind this is jammed against the front of the cockpit and slid in relatively far, sitting on the gunnel or inside it. In heavy wind this means moving progressively further back and hiking more.
Weight forward digs the bow in and lifts the stern. This helps with pointing. Weight more backward lifts the bow and helps with speed. Note that fore/aft changes with wind strength. The mast will force the bow into the water by itself in heavier air, so your body must move back to compensate for that.
As you make fore/aft weight adjustments, pay attention to in-out as well. The flow over the daggerboard should always be uninterrupted and it should remain close to vertical. Upwind the daggerboard flow is as or more important than sail flow.
Upwind in a dinghy, the vang and cunningham should always have a little tension. In heavy air they should have a lot of tension to depower the sail. The outhaul is about the same in all normal conditions with a hand-width of space between the sail and the boom. In survival conditions flatten closer than that using the outhaul.
As the wind builds, depower with cunningham, then vang, then outhaul, then daggerboard, then mainsheet (luff). Cunningham can pull the tack of the sail all of the way down to the boom, much further than you might expect. When you do this, the sail will show creases at clew. The lower batten will invert when fully flattened. This is from the cunningham and not from the outhaul.
If you end up above the layline due to wind shifts or a misjudged tack, do not sail all of the way to the mark on a close reach. That is fast but creates an opening for leeward boats. Instead, sail down to the layline and then head up right on it. This forces other boats to come at your stern. They then have to go below the layline to pass, putting them in a bad position, or to try and pass to windward where you can head them up.
Lee bowing is using the disturbed air off the back of your mainsail to slow a boat that is close behind and to windward. It is useful when you are fighting for the lead of the fleet and need to take out a specific competitor while sailing close hauled.
If you have enough room for a close cross in front of another boat, then you can instead tack under them and become the leading leeward boat. When the leeward boat is about 3/4 to a full boat length ahead and extremely close laterally, the disturbed and redirected air from the leading leeward boat will slow the windward trailing boat, which is now facing turbulent air and a header. Note that there is some delay before the momentum of the windward boat is blunted, so hold this position for at least 30 to 60 seconds before expecting to see a result.
In this situation, the windward boat is pinned up by the leeward boat. It cannot fall off to get better trim and will slowly fall behind or tack away to get undisturbed air. When the windward boat is also in the middle of a fleet it may not have enough room to tack and is completely stuck, which you may have experienced from being behind on the start line.
When rounding from close hauled to by the lee (windward-leeward course),
- Ease the vang halfway
- Release the outhaul
- Round the mark, simultaneously
- Easing the mainsheet to keep the sail trimmed, and pushing it out if necessary to just past 90
- Heel the boat to windward and keep it there; you should feel no pull on the tiller
- Move weight forward to the squatting position in the cockpit
- Release the cunningham entirely
- Raise the daggerboard 1/3 in an ILCA (not in an RS Aero)
- Adjust the vang as needed, probably easing it more. The 2nd batten should be lively and flick
When by the lee, you are past dead downwind. All of the terms for describing the boat remain determined by which side the boom is on. For example:
- "windward" is the side opposite the boom even though it is technically facing downwind
- you are on starboard tack if the boom is on the port side of the boat
- "upwind" is turning away from the boom, towards dead downwind
- "downwind" is turning towards the boom, towards where the wind is coming from
Keep the kicker loose so that the leech can move forward with a high degree of twist. An expert sailor in a RS Aero might let it almost completely off because of the square topped main. In an ILCA some vang is still needed with the triangular main.
For an ILCA 6 sail (which is wide and short) or a less confident sailor with a large rig, don't ease the kicker too much. In that case the boom will ride up in gusts and lose power, and you also risk a deathroll if you can't shift weight to windward and trim in fast enough.
Look at the leech position, not the boom position; the boom might be at 70 degrees in heavy air but the leech at the top will have pushed past 90 degrees. Trim the most twisted point on the leech, about 3/4 of the way to the top. In light wind, the boom will be close to 90 degrees or maybe slightly past 90. You want gravity pulling the boom forward instead of back onto you in light wind.
Take on windward heel. Steer primarily with weight and sails, not rudder. Use the tiller to feel where the boat wants to go in the current trim rather than directing it.
Move weight forward when heeling the boat as the bow digging in will emphasize the turn.
Shift weight aft, making the rudder dig in and removing the bow dig if there's too much weather helm in heavy wind
Accelerating while surfing or in a gust by the lee shifts the apparent wind forward and decreases it. When this happens, trim in, turn towards to dead downwind, and move weight over the daggerboard.
In waves, make S-turns for legal acceleration and then surf down waves. Steer to catch waves, glancing backwards if the waves are moving faster than the boat. Use deep reaches and by the lee in combination to reach the waves, hit the layline, or maneuver relative to puffs and other boats.
To gybe in an ILCA when by the lee, first hook the mainsheet near the traveller with the tiller extension to initially bring it towards you.
Lean into the boat, reversing the heel from windward to leeward, and simultaneously grab and pull in the doubled mainsheet from the back of the boat (not from the normal line in front of you). These two actions will cause the boat to accelerate and "head up" towards a deep reach. (Heading up in this case means turning towards dead downwind, because when by the lee, direction terms are backwards.)
As the boat passes dead downwind and the apparent wind from the pump cancels most of the wind blowing from aft, pull the doubled mainsheet past you and roll the boat back to windward. This will trigger the gybe from gravity on the boom, wind catching the leech, and your pull.
Just as the boom comes near the water and the boat is about to roll on top of you, switch sides and heel the boat back to the new windward side. This will pull the sail up into the air and stop the turn. Continue sailing on the new tack and maintain the windward heel.
The rolling motions are almost the same as for a roll tack--lean to leeward, then windward, let the sail cross over, and finally put your weight on the new windward side. The difference is that instead of flattening with a windward hike you are pulling the boat past flat up to a windward heel.
For the RS Aero, grab the mainsheet lines as a bundle after the block to initiate the gybe.
Head the boat slightly past dead downwind, easing the sail and vang to maintain speed. Sheet directly from the boom, with the mainsheet close to its maximum length. Squat at the forward edge of the cockpit on the windward side and reverse heel to reach this point.
When at the desired heading, accentuate the heel so that the sail rocks up into stronger air and the boat holds itself on course. Feel for tension in the main. When there is little tension in the sheet, increase the windward heel and ease the sail. As tension builds, shift weight in, head "up" towards dead downwind, and sheet in as the boat accelerates.
When the puff passes, reverse these, heeling to windward and bearing away from dead downwind back towards the lee.
Gybing in light wind requires pulling the sail across hard and then heeling on the new windward side to reach the new heading. Some ILCA sailors grab the main at the traveler behind them and pull it across. Others flick the main from the boom or behind the block. In the RS Aero, grab the main from the boom and throw it from there.
When rounding a mark and bearing off from close hauled onto a reach (trapezoid or triangle course):
- Ease the outhaul
- Ease the vang only a little
- Round the mark
- Move weight aft
- Wait for acceleration
- Release the cunningham
- Ease the main to the new course
- Adjust the vang for the new course
Do not ease the sail substantially until already moving fast on the new course. Easing too early is slow if it causes drag or breaks flow.
When properly trimmed on a broad reach:
- Weight aft
- Boom around 60-70 degrees
- Leech a little less than 90 degrees
- Cunningham off
- Outhaul relatively loose
- Kicker eased compared to upwind vang sheeting. The boom should be riding up a little, but do not let the leech spill uncontrollably or shift too far forward.
The deathroll is a dinghy capsize to windward from a broad reach:
It occurs when the mainsail is too far out for the heading. This often occurs because the sailor has eased the mainsheet and vang too much after rounding a windward/offset mark.
Do not let the leech get further than 90 degrees from the heading. That is, do not let the leech get ahead of the mast. Recall that the vang and main are the controls that affect the leech.
When you feel a deathroll begin:
- Shift weight aggressively to leeward to keep the boat flat
- Bear off and sail by the lee with the same trim or sheet and vang in appropriately for your course
Do not follow your upwind intuition to head up or ease the sail! On a broad reach, these will stall the rudder, make the sail position worse, and accelerate the capsize. Explanations:
- https://sailzing.com/off-wind-balance/
- https://www.facebook.com/RoosterKit/videos/boat-whisperer-chapter-2-downwind-death-roll/167828150942592/
- http://kanatasailingclub.com/2017/06/advanced-sailing-skills-june-3-2017/
Enter wide, exit tight to shut out competitors and hit new heading cleanly.
For a downwind mark, prefer to gybe on approach instead of gybing around the mark.
As you approach the zone, talk to other boats early. That way everyone knows who is taking which side at a gate and who has room rather than shouting at the last minute.
For all day regattas in moderate heat, every hour I need to consume about 100 calories of sugar and about half a litre of water, with some electrolytes. Watered down Gatorade is a convenient way to combine these. I carry one bottle of this and one bottle of pure water. Having two bottles also means that if one is lost or gets salt water in it then I have a backup. I also keep two Clif bars or similar in my dry bag for lunch if I don't have a support boat.
I dress to minimize UV skin exposure and err on the side of slightly warmer. When too hot, I get wet and let evaporative cooling from the surrounding water instead of my own sweat cool me off. When it is really hot (above 30C) and the water is relatively clean, I might even stay in the water between races holding on to the side of my boat.
Wearing a separate neoprene top and spray coat on a farmer john instead of a full wetsuit allows adjusting layers as temperature, wind, and spray change throughout the day. Changing between races can be a little tense if they have short start sequences and are packed closely.
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