Musto Skiff Training Weekend at Dalgety Bay Sailing Club
by Jamie Hilton 31 May 2022 07:32 PDT
Musto Skiff Training Weekend at Dalgety Bay © Jamie Hilton
The Musto Skiff fleet has an ethos about it where there's a willingness to share ideas and to help others, whether that be to climb the learning curve and master the basics, or to squeeze out that little bit more that might make the difference between a podium place or not.
With this in mind, it was nice to have the opportunity to get a group of keen sailors together to do just that earlier this month. With support in funding from RYA Scotland for class training and coaching activities, we put together a training event, which took place over the weekend of 7th and 8th May at Dalgety Bay Sailing Club on the Firth of Forth.
Nine sailors participated, including four local club members and five visiting boats, with the 'advisory services' led by Musto Skiff sailors, Jamie Hilton (14 seasons in the class and a 2019 UK National Champion) and Euan Hurter (multiple times Youth Champion in the class and a regular race winner at major championships).
The plan was relatively simple... A check-in with each sailor to find out what they wanted to gain from the weekend and then a morning session in 12-16 kts to spend some time sailing up and downwind under the watchful eye of the coaches who gathered video footage from a RIB with regular feedback provided to those under the spotlight. Then a break for lunch (a trip to Greggs) and a video de-brief before returning to the water (now around 10kts) to work on the learnings and observations made, before wrapping up the day with some starting and small course races.
A further de-brief was held once ashore before thirst got the better of us and the clubhouse bar was only too keen to treat us to some fine local brew before we ventured off to a local restaurant.
For Sunday, the day started with a re-cap of the previous day, and then making use of a Musto Skiff as a prop, the more experienced hands described how they approach their various manoeuvres. Then to the water, where the wind was much lighter with around 8 (dropping) to 5kts, giving ample opportunity to examine the sailors through a range of conditions. The day and weekend were wrapped up with another round of starting and short course exercises.
In the spirit of sharing, here's a little taster of the key learnings and observations from within the group, and a flavour of what we worked on.
Upwind: The boat performs best when sailed upright (flat), and where windward heel causes the boat to slide to leeward. Like most classes, a combination of helm and mainsheet should be used to keep it flat, ideally with continual adjustment of both. In light winds (<6kts) most rig set ups require a good pull of cunno to open the leech and help air flow over the sail.
Downwind: Pulling in the main (often further than you think) helps promote early planing and top end speed, but makes exiting the gybe harder, so ideally requires an ease before the gybe. Longer trapeze lines help when planing to get body weight lower, providing a more stable platform, and from there, easier to drive the boat faster.
Manoeuvres: It helps to use the full width of the boat (moving weight early and assertively from rack to rack), rather than taking too long in the main cockpit, where the extra leverage helps maintain / re-initiate flow over the foils. A substantial ease of the main through the tacks and gybes makes things a lot easier with little compromise in speed, but beware of easing main before the tack, as it greatly impacts the rate of turn and makes it much harder to get the nose through the wind.
Boat set-up: It's better to set the strop length up too short rather than too long to that sufficient leech tension can be applied. If too long, then it likely results in sailing underpowered and not able to point as high as you might otherwise. Vang setting: if using the red-line on the mainsail front pocket as a reference point, beware that this is greatly affected by how high your mainsail is hoisted (where many halyards were observed to have slipped or stretched). Again, this also affects your strop length. A useful tip is to stretch the main halyard with the cunno once the mainsail is hoisted, release, then squeeze another inch into the hoist.
Starting: Like putting is to golf, this is a game within a game. Know where you want to go on the beat and why. Plan your start accordingly. Consider tide, wind strength and how much space there is. Take multiple transits. Practice, practice, practice.
Everyone left having learnt something new, even the coaches, and it was really good to be able to see the video footage to support the observations made. The camera never lies, as they say, and this meant we all left the coaching weekend with something to work on. Sailing aside, it was really good to see some new and old faces, so from a social and coaching perspective, a superb weekend all round.
Big thanks to Dalgety Bay for the use of their facilities, training room and RIBs, to the coaches for their time, and to RYA Scotland for their significant contribution in supporting this initiative.
We plan to arrange further training and coaching sessions later in the season, so please get in touch with the class association should you wish to attend or host a similar session. We want to help, and we are happy to make it happen.