Blind sailing Miami has not been very active the last few years, but it will all change. Preparing a team for the US Nationals was a great experience and very rewarding for everyone involved. We learned a lot and found new ways to manipulate the race course and the boat we where on.
Janis Bartleson needed to sharpen her skills and techniques for the jib-trimmer position. She had been working out in the gym and build good strength and it was now time for her to get back on the water, sailing Miami a few times in our Sonar and it proved very fruitful. We focused on her using her entire body when trimming the jib. She located where she needed to sit in order for the jib-sheet to line up up with the clam cleat in a straight line from the ratchet block. She was now able to 'whale" on it with all of her weight and strength, almost as if she was hanging from it, but in an horizontal position. We begun to call the amount of adjustments in clicks, referring to the sound of the ratchet block as it turns. No vision needed to do that job any longer. We worked on making Jan comfortable wearing nice padded clothing so that she could throw herself around without getting black and blue. She now wears knee pads, gloves and her skin is all covered and protected.
While sailing in Newport we established a strategic plan before every race. We identified four different starting techniques and described them using Jan's palm as drawing board. Evryone on our team was in on what we attempted to do and it was a contributing factor to our success.
We healed our boat to windward a lot more than the other boats and that was fast. It made Jan's job of being a human whisker-pole down-wind a lot easier. I had one foot in the bottom of the cockpit and another one on the edge of the boat and could easily control the amount of heal. We had two downwind modes, one with the jib winged, the other one with the jib trimmed to leeward. We would wing the jib longer and than switch mode to get to the gate. Some teams seemed to struggle, sailing to high with the jib winged, never really being able to fly it efficiently for a longer time
Our focus on the race and boat speed was great. We lost places and struggled from time-to-time during segments of the race, but we never lost focus. Blind sailing is more error pruned that regular racing so if you are patient, it will almost always pay off.
Now we are back sailing Miami.