Sailing
Laser sailing and racing presents a unique set of physical and skill based challenges. Fast Laser sailing requires an advanced level of fitness in order to endure the straight legged hiking and body-torque techniques essential in getting upwind and reaching quickly.
Since 1998 Laser sailing has increased to not only be physical upwind and reaching but also to also include far more demanding sailing and potential speed increases when sailing downwind. Traditionally sailing downwind has been considered processional in dinghy racing, simply being pushed downwind. But Laser sailors, including Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt significantly changed the techniques used to race a Laser downwind. The techniques these sailors introduced uses a much more dynamic sailing method, concentrating on surfing the waves going downwind. The sailors will weave their way downwind, constantly look either side for the next large wave they can "hop" onto and surf downwind. In order to maximise their speed boats will often be sailed by the lee, where the boom and sail will be allowed to travel significantly forward of the mast.
This change in technique for downwind racing has changed most dinghy racing to be much more competitive on the downwind legs and resulted in a change of the international course shape from a traditional triangle to a trapezoid giving greater opportunity for increased upwind and straight downwind legs.
Read more about this topic: Laser (dinghy)
Famous quotes containing the word sailing:
“Theologians should not be ashamed to admit that they cannot enter a contest with such antagonists [the sceptics], and that they do not want to expose the Gospel truths to such an attack. The ship of Jesus Christ is not made for sailing on this stormy sea, but for taking shelter from this tempest in the haven of faith.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)
“I saw three ships come sailing by,
Come sailing by, come sailing by,
I saw three ships come sailing by,
On Christmas Day in the morning.”
—Unknown. As I Sat on a Sunny Bank. . .
Oxford Book of Light Verse, The. W. H. Auden, ed. (1938)
“To sunny waters some
By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool
They sportive wheel, or, sailing down the stream,
Are snatched immediate by the quick-eyed trout
Or darting salmon.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)