Sailing Thing #13: Fitness (Sailing Essential 7)
This post brought to you courtesy of my waking up itching to run this morning. Technically our fitness training schedule's supposed to be on a taper meaning cutting back as we get closer to the big competition. So I wasn't supposed to do an hour-long run. But to hell with it. It made me feel better.
Anyway, I was thinking about this thing I've heard many times when I mention fitness training to non-sailors in RL, and it never ceases to be irritating:
'Why do you need to be fit to sail? All you do is sit there, right?'
I supppose it's Singapore's sailing conditions that give this impression: light winds, flat water, not much power to pull against. Well, sure, when all you see is this:
,
it's hard to fathom sailing being a physically strenuous sport.
When you watch sailing in stuff like this:
,
suddenly the physical side of sailing becomes a lot more obvious.
Maybe see it in action:
Let's go back to light wind first. In light airs, we move a lot slower in the boat. The sails aren't heavy, we're trying not to disturb air flow over them so as not to lose what little power they have. It seems easy, but to do it well involves control. Small movements, just a bit of pressing the boat down to capture what power there is but no more. Core strength is important; your balance needs to be good so that you can move slowly and precisely through an uneven surface without jarring the boat and control exactly how you want it to heel.
So although we're not moving around getting our heart rates up, there is strength - perhaps more specialised - involved.
Okay, on to stronger breeze. Let's start with the middle range. That's when sailing boats become a lot more dynamic. When the wind blows against the sails, it of course is a force against it. Our sails reach up a lot higher than our centreboards in the water reach down, so there's a lot more force pushing the tip of the mast towards the water. What we need to do is exert enough weight off the side of the boat opposite the sail to keep the wind from tipping the boat over. This way we can harness the wind power without the boat capsizing.
The most common way to balance the boat is hiking. I'll refer you to the Lasers to demonstrate first, because theirs is the most hiking-oriented boat (and arguably the most physical, though I would only agree that it's the most exerting for the lower body since they don't actually go one-to-one on their sails like we do.)
Hiking in sailing language involves sticking as much of your body as possible over the side of the boat while your feet hold you in by hooking onto toe straps. The majority of the force centres on the quadricep muscles, which work to hold the position.
We do this too on a 470, though only the helms mostly. Once the wind picks up the crews get onto the decks and trapeze - hook themselves onto a wire and stand straight out off the side. This gives quite a bit of leverage against the wind, and requires, as you might imagine, good balance. (See, more core strength.)
Behind the crews, we helms have our toe straps and we get our bums out there.
You can try this at home: just get a steady piece of furniture that you can hook your feet under, sit your thighs sidewise on a chair so that you can lean your butt and body out. Try and hold that position for a minute to begin with. (Just so you know, races are typically about an hour long - the hiking bit can be a half hour continuous stretch if the upwind leg is long.)
So that's for the legs. What about the upper body? Well, we have to reel the sail in somehow and set it at a correct angle to the wind. And wind never just comes in one straight, constant force. It changes in direction, it blows in gusts, waves knock the boat around and change the power of the forces acting on the boat. As the main power source in the boat, the mainsail has to be constantly adjusted in breeze, what we call 'playing main'. This constant sheeting in and out is what we need strong arms for: a lot of pulling.
There are plenty of pulling actions on the boat besides sheeting: taking in controls, hoisting sails, taking down sails. Also, when we sail downwind, we do what we call pumping, for extra power to surf down waves. Basically it's like fanning the sail really quickly and it generates more power from the wind to propel the boat forward.
Pumping is a one-to-one pull back on the sails. We just grab it and pull it straight in with one single pull.
Then you have the mark roundings, with the spinnaker hoists and drops. Hoisting involves really quick pulls of the halyard on the helm's side to raise the sail, while the crew pushes out the spinnaker pole that holds it out. (I think that's the only real pushing action on the boat.)
Dropping involves lots of pulling from the crew - taking down the pole and pulling the spinnaker round to drop it in the bag.
This has to be fast so the spinnaker won't drop into the water.
And then it's the helm's turn to sheet in the mainsail really quick while steering the boat round to get it upwind.
So add it all together and racing is an hour's worth of hiking and sheeting and pumping ... and the power you are pulling against just increases as the wind does. In fact, by 20 knots, sometimes you aren't even pumping that much on the downwind, but you need plenty of strength just to hold the sail in to take the power.
Hopefully once you've read this, I've had you at least convinced that we don't just 'sit there' and sail the boat! And that's I've better explained why I always talk about weight sessions and cardio training and so on. Especially so in Singapore because if our wind conditions don't provide natural strength training, we have to supplement it with our gym work.
---
Take the 100 things challenge @ 100things_index!
Masterlist Progress: 13/100
Oh, and speaking of running, welcome to new friend vertical_chaos! I love that this challenge has pointed me in the direction of LJ-ers who like sporty things. :)
Anyway, I was thinking about this thing I've heard many times when I mention fitness training to non-sailors in RL, and it never ceases to be irritating:
'Why do you need to be fit to sail? All you do is sit there, right?'
I supppose it's Singapore's sailing conditions that give this impression: light winds, flat water, not much power to pull against. Well, sure, when all you see is this:
,
it's hard to fathom sailing being a physically strenuous sport.
When you watch sailing in stuff like this:
,
suddenly the physical side of sailing becomes a lot more obvious.
Maybe see it in action:
Click to viewLet's go back to light wind first. In light airs, we move a lot slower in the boat. The sails aren't heavy, we're trying not to disturb air flow over them so as not to lose what little power they have. It seems easy, but to do it well involves control. Small movements, just a bit of pressing the boat down to capture what power there is but no more. Core strength is important; your balance needs to be good so that you can move slowly and precisely through an uneven surface without jarring the boat and control exactly how you want it to heel.
So although we're not moving around getting our heart rates up, there is strength - perhaps more specialised - involved.
Okay, on to stronger breeze. Let's start with the middle range. That's when sailing boats become a lot more dynamic. When the wind blows against the sails, it of course is a force against it. Our sails reach up a lot higher than our centreboards in the water reach down, so there's a lot more force pushing the tip of the mast towards the water. What we need to do is exert enough weight off the side of the boat opposite the sail to keep the wind from tipping the boat over. This way we can harness the wind power without the boat capsizing.
The most common way to balance the boat is hiking. I'll refer you to the Lasers to demonstrate first, because theirs is the most hiking-oriented boat (and arguably the most physical, though I would only agree that it's the most exerting for the lower body since they don't actually go one-to-one on their sails like we do.)
Hiking in sailing language involves sticking as much of your body as possible over the side of the boat while your feet hold you in by hooking onto toe straps. The majority of the force centres on the quadricep muscles, which work to hold the position.
We do this too on a 470, though only the helms mostly. Once the wind picks up the crews get onto the decks and trapeze - hook themselves onto a wire and stand straight out off the side. This gives quite a bit of leverage against the wind, and requires, as you might imagine, good balance. (See, more core strength.)
Behind the crews, we helms have our toe straps and we get our bums out there.
You can try this at home: just get a steady piece of furniture that you can hook your feet under, sit your thighs sidewise on a chair so that you can lean your butt and body out. Try and hold that position for a minute to begin with. (Just so you know, races are typically about an hour long - the hiking bit can be a half hour continuous stretch if the upwind leg is long.)
So that's for the legs. What about the upper body? Well, we have to reel the sail in somehow and set it at a correct angle to the wind. And wind never just comes in one straight, constant force. It changes in direction, it blows in gusts, waves knock the boat around and change the power of the forces acting on the boat. As the main power source in the boat, the mainsail has to be constantly adjusted in breeze, what we call 'playing main'. This constant sheeting in and out is what we need strong arms for: a lot of pulling.
There are plenty of pulling actions on the boat besides sheeting: taking in controls, hoisting sails, taking down sails. Also, when we sail downwind, we do what we call pumping, for extra power to surf down waves. Basically it's like fanning the sail really quickly and it generates more power from the wind to propel the boat forward.
Pumping is a one-to-one pull back on the sails. We just grab it and pull it straight in with one single pull.
Then you have the mark roundings, with the spinnaker hoists and drops. Hoisting involves really quick pulls of the halyard on the helm's side to raise the sail, while the crew pushes out the spinnaker pole that holds it out. (I think that's the only real pushing action on the boat.)
Dropping involves lots of pulling from the crew - taking down the pole and pulling the spinnaker round to drop it in the bag.
This has to be fast so the spinnaker won't drop into the water.
And then it's the helm's turn to sheet in the mainsail really quick while steering the boat round to get it upwind.
So add it all together and racing is an hour's worth of hiking and sheeting and pumping ... and the power you are pulling against just increases as the wind does. In fact, by 20 knots, sometimes you aren't even pumping that much on the downwind, but you need plenty of strength just to hold the sail in to take the power.
Hopefully once you've read this, I've had you at least convinced that we don't just 'sit there' and sail the boat! And that's I've better explained why I always talk about weight sessions and cardio training and so on. Especially so in Singapore because if our wind conditions don't provide natural strength training, we have to supplement it with our gym work.
---
Take the 100 things challenge @ 100things_index!
Masterlist Progress: 13/100
Oh, and speaking of running, welcome to new friend vertical_chaos! I love that this challenge has pointed me in the direction of LJ-ers who like sporty things. :)