2006 Bacardi Cup Preperations

Written by Austin Sperry

When Rick approached me to write an article for his site, I really didn’t have a clue what to write about. I could do the play by play action over the 6 days of racing at Bacardi and tell you guys that “we had good starts and managed to go the right way on the beats with good speed on the runs.” I thought that was a waste of time and wanted to give you my perspective on my preparation leading up to Bacardi.

I really believe that if you don’t prepare you prepare to fail.  Sailing star boats is as much a mental game as a physical one, it starts before you leave the dock. The star class is full of seriously competitive sailors. Most star sailors have about 90% of the game it’s the last 10% that wins regattas.  I have been very fortunate to sail with some of the best sailors in the world and I have learned the importance of preparation. This year leading up to Bacardi we sailed every winter regatta in Miami and our worst finish was a 5^th.  I felt we were prepared, but it all needed to come together to win a regatta of this size.

John owns several major companies and he is really busy, basically he puts me in charge of the star program and shows up when the boat is in the water.

This approach really works for me I am a control freak when it comes to my star campaign. I drove from Mississippi on Thursday and arrived that night, I woke up early and started to get the boat ready. My skipper was not due to arrive until Saturday so I had all day to make sure everything was 100% ready to go. I make it a habit to take the rig down before and after every regatta, I do this because the weather is Miami is really harsh and is tough on the mast and rigging. I went over the mast and my notes from the previous regattas and looked at some pictures and made small changes. My routine is very relaxing, for me it’s key to take my time when I measure the mast. It’s very critical so I may re-take the measurement a few times to ensure accuracy. Anytime I make a change I make sure to note it for future reference, good or bad I’ll learn something. I make sure to use the same measurement methods each and every time, this is a must to create any level of consistency.  In sailing there are so many things that you cant control ie. wind, current, waves, competition etc. The few elements we can control need to be taken full advantage of. I know exactly where my rig is set all the time. Mentally this is huge for me, once I am there on the rig I don’t even think about it. I am confident my settings are where they need to be for the condition this being said, I do make on the water changes, over Bacardi during the runs I made a few adjustments to the Sta-masters, but every time I make a change it’s to get a little more out of the boat, that last 10% of speed is huge!

I registered for the regatta. After making sure the rig was the way I wanted I had the bow numbers and Bacardi stickers on the boat by the afternoon, even had time to clean the trailer boxes. It might sound stupid, but cleaning the clutter physically helps me mentally as well. When you clean the clutter out of your head its amazing how focused you can be in a star boat.  John made it to the club on Saturday morning and was ready to sail, we had a 2 hour session and headed back to the barn. I didn’t make any changes to the mast that evening and left the Z4 main on the boom the entire regatta.

John and Leslie stayed at the Ritz on Key Biscayne while Sally Darrell and I stayed at the residence inn just down the street from the yacht club. I woke up about 7am every morning, turned on my ipod and walked to the yacht club, alone. This was my time, during the walk I thought about my job as a crew and how to make our boat go faster. I was focused. I didn’t have any outside distractions.  Once I arrived to the club I would do the same thing everyday, I would measure the rig, make sure all ring-dings were taped and my work list was complete. After I felt my boat was ready to go I would eat breakfast with our boat captain “Big Darrell”. Coach would usually arrive with the weather report at 9am. Coach JD and I would all sit down and go through the weather together. I really don’t get bogged down with a forecast, my thoughts are: Its just a Forecast and just go sailing, do the basics and get the job done. Basically, I use the forecast to see what sail I want to use, like I said before I used the Z4 the entire regatta.

Captain Darrell and our wives used our 35’ intrepid as our tow boat with our provisions. Having one coach boat is key, we had two which made things that much easier. Larry Suter was in his coach boat and left the dock before we did, he would take wind readings and measure the current. By the time we got out there Larry had good information to give us and help come up with a strategy for the day. Be careful not to get too much information. Do not  let your mind get cluttered and over loaded. Get enough information to make a few key decisions.

After racing we would get a tow back to the yacht club and were one of the first boats out of the water. Its great to be out of the water first, then we can get the de-brief meeting over and relax, go for a stretch or bike ride. Over the week I did not venture out of the hotel at all, in the past I would have been at the bar every night with my buddies but that never won any major regattas…

On the last evening I made up for it I managed to drink about 100 bottles of rum out of my crew trophy!  It was great because we passed that trophy around to everyone who was at the party!

If you take anything from this article take this: Preparation & focus are key.

If you are unsure how to measure your mast correctly or tune your rig, keep working at it. Ask a more experienced guy, if you see me ask me I will help. I am where I am today because I asked about 4 million questions along the way.  Practice sailing with different rig settings, become totally involved with your star boat, it will be frustrating at first but you will learn how everything works and get it down to a few settings that work for your style of sailing.