World Champion tactician Bucky Smith talks about his Etchells win

by Tracey Johnstone on 18 Mar 2009 Tactician Bucky Smith was a key member of the Australian team that achieved a resounding victory in the Audi Etchells World Championship 2009 held in Melbourne in early March.

Aboard the Jason Muir skippered Etchells, Racer XY, Smith and his fellow crew members Paul Wyatt and Matthew Chew worked as a highly polished team to finish 20 points ahead of the next team and to walk away from the World Championship with one race to spare.

At the completion of the Worlds Smith took time to analyse the team’s program and racing strategy. What follows is a comprehensive and fascinating insight to the Muir campaign and how Smith contributed to the success of the team in the Worlds.

Was Jason Muir clear on what your role was on board his boat for the Worlds ?

BS - Jason asked me to come on board as tactician and headsail trimmer. The great part about that was Jason and his team were already very well rehearsed in running the boat, making it go fast. I was truly able to come on as tactician and focus 99 per cent of my attention on that task.

I believe this was one of the keys to our success. I had all the tactical information at hand and was able to sit on the boat constantly running tactical options and scenarios through my mind to make my decisions. This would not have been achievable without Jason driving the boat perfectly, Matt making the boat go as fast as possible and giving me his tactical input as well, and especially without Paul keeping in my ear about our bigger picture strategy we had come up with before each race. He dealt with things like our overall positioning on the race course and the compass numbers info. This enabled me to make informed, quick decisions.

Once Muir had confirmed your inclusion in his team what did you do to prepare for the Worlds ?

BS - Basically I came on board about four weeks before the Worlds. The boat was already prepared very well and was up to speed. We did a few club races together and the Brisbane Fleet Championship, which we won. After the fleet championships we were able to identify areas of improvement in our on-water processes including crew work, tactical information gathering, starting strategy and decision making.

We then took the boat to Melbourne and did the Entire Pre-Worlds regatta. There we kept building on what we were learning about how we were racing the boat, interacting and communicating on board. Unfortunately, the weather in Melbourne during the week before the Worlds prevented us from doing much non-race training, but I was always confident in our boat speed and our race processes were coming together well. We spent a lot of time that week working on the boat and preparing it for the Worlds in terms of fittings, polishing, etc. The boat must have been the most well polished boat there after we were done with it that week!

What preparations did you do during the Entire Pre-Worlds event as a precursor to the Worlds ?

BS – The Pre-Worlds was our main preparation in all areas, but most particularly our starting, use of the weather models and tactical decision making. Unfortunately, we scored an OCS in the Pre-Worlds so our overall result didn't look too good, but we were happy with our progress, our boat speed during this regatta and our on-water processes were beginning to click. This regatta also gave us a bit of an idea of 'who's who in the zoo' in terms of competitors, who was fast and so on.

How aware were you of your Worlds competition and what did you do to in response to this competition ?

BS - The Pre-Worlds regatta gave us a good idea of the main competition and really just confirmed in our minds which of the teams were fast. In terms of specific competitors I have always maintained that I was well aware of the calibre of who we were up against. Every race I was well aware of the company we were in.

I had the utmost respect for competitors like John Bertrand (and his team of Ben Ainslie and Andrew Palfrey), Jud Smith, Chris Bush, Stuart Childerly, even the Barry boys, along with many others in the fleet. In fact, we went through the entry list after the Pre-Worlds and specifically identified who we thought were going to be the top ten. This was tough because so many were top crews. We memorised their bow numbers and sail numbers and the Barry boys were on the list right from the start. This made it much easier to know who was where on the race course and I think this is a testament to how much respect we had for the fleet basing some of our decision making on where our top competitors were positioning themselves on the race course.

For each race day what were your preparations ?

BS - One of the main things we focussed on was our routine. It became mechanical, second nature. First up was meeting at Jason's unit. We would get our gear together, check our weights on the scales, then head down to the cafe next to the Royal Brighton Yacht Club. Every morning we had a coffee at this cafe and went through the day's weather forecasts and models for a good 45 minutes. We would discuss different race strategies, scenarios, start line situations and have a look over the results as they progressed.

I would write down all the weather model data I was using and things to watch out for on the race course for the day and take this to the boat when Matt was giving the bottom of the boat a wash. We didn't really have set times to leave the dock, nor did we try to be first on the water each day, we just followed our own routine and stayed focussed.

On the water we did the usual tactical data information gathering in terms of wind directions, what the wind was doing in terms of wind shifts, how close the wind was to the weather models I had, upwind and downwind sailing angles, wind strength, headsail choice and rig setup. All this all usually occurred up to about ten minutes to the warning signal. Then we focussed on start line angle and line bias, head to wind angles, taking our start line transit and determining what phase the wind was in, what side of the course may be favoured and what would be the favoured tack after the start particularly during the five minute starting sequence period.

We wanted to have our place on the line decided before three minutes to go particularly because the light winds meant it was hard to get to the end of the line in time and I wanted to make sure we were in place for the first shift or to have the ability to position ourselves after the start to what I thought would be the favoured side of the course. Mind you, we didn't get this right every time!.

We re-did this pre-start process if there was a general recall. We were bitten in the pre-worlds where our OCS was due to the line being moved after a general recall and I didn't re-take the transit. I was convinced we were not over on that start; on the old transit that is!!
So we made a good point of going through our process again each time and checking for changes.

How did you approach each race day in terms of strategy ?

BS - Our strategy was initially formulated based on the weather models I was getting, looking at the start time and what the weather models were saying the wind would do around that time. It was then finalised on-water when I was able to compare what the wind was actually doing to the weather models predictions and my own personal judgements. An overall start and first beat strategy was usually agreed upon by ten minutes to go to the warning signal. We also had to adapt to any changes in the final 15 minutes to the start. We changed strategy only a couple of times with five minutes to go. I even changed strategy after the start if needed, particularly in Race 7 when the big left-hand, backing shift caught me out.

The other main element of our individual race strategy was our overall regatta strategy. My plan was top 15 places in the races would be respectable, consistent top