Watch this!
Timing is everything, yet nothing if your watch is off time.
Once, at a big regatta, I was carefully watching the Race Committee (RC) boat for the signs of a flag being hoisted, as the warning signal was due in moments. I saw the flag hoister poise, then start pulling. The flag popped up and started fluttering. I instinctively flinched at my watch to start it, but there was no sound signal. The flag kept rising slowly and four seconds later it reached the top of its hoist and a gun was fired simultaneously.
Ok, I thought, I’m either going to start this race four seconds early or I need a better idea of what was going on. So from then on, I decided to get close to the RC boat to listen for the countdown (“trois… duex… un… zero!”) and synchronize to their time.
This is important considering that we must time our start from the RCs visual signals. However, sometimes the flag-puller does not appreciate this and he or she takes a full second or four to get the flag up – it should be instant. Therefore, if you synchronize your watch with that of the RC’s, you can’t go wrong.
Good race committees often work off the same ‘minute’ for a whole regatta. If so (and it’s easy enough to check), you can then leave that watch running all day and maybe for the whole regatta, checking it at each signal. This is a great bonus because you will have a perfectly synchronized watch with the RC’s. The other way, if you happen to miss a signal by even half a second because you’re too far from the start boat to get it accurately, it may be enough to give you a bad start.
There are many sailing watches that can count down from 10,
5, 4, or 1 minute, yet they either stop at zero or count up again.
If your start is recalled, why not just leave it counting up?
Then you won’t have to restart your watch and risk being out of phase
with the race committee. I always
use the stopwatch/count up function and leave it running on one of my two
watches – the bigger one!
On single-handed boats, one of the best ways to time a race start effectively is to have one big watch (with numbers 3-4cm high) positioned forward, in line of sight of the bow and another regular watch on your wrist. The big one allows you to keep looking forward – where you want to go – as well as at the time. If you do need to look to your side and at other boats then you can look back at the big watch without pulling a hand away from steering or sheeting. So, your eyes can be kept up and out of the boat. The wristwatch is a back up.
On crewed boats, it’s good if the crew takes charge of calling the time remaining to the skipper. For this purpose, arrange the frequency of time calls beforehand, increasing closer to the start. To be sure the call is not blown away in the wind, the crew should turn his or her head toward the skipper as much as possible.
The big watch forward can also be handy on crewed boats in case the pre-start gets hectic and the crew can no longer make accurate calls.
If you do have that big watch on the mast or front deck, you’ll still need to run your wristwatch as well. This is because the big one will have to face to starboard and may be blocked to your view during a port tack approach.
In practice, once my wristwatch is started, on a subsequent minute I go forward and start the big watch, again as a stopwatch, rather than a countdown timer. If the start is recalled I restart only the wristwatch at the new preparatory signal (or thereabouts), so I know which minute to start on.
If your budget allows only one watch, make sure the digits are quite large. Many ‘sports’ or ‘sailing’ wristwatches have a big face but small numbers.
Then again, when you really think about it what the single-handed sailor needs is a talking watch – a temporal whisper in the ear. Then, you’ll have more time to look around and get a tactical advantage. I reckon someone should make one that has a little speaker close to your ear, in a hat, so you can hear the countdown easily.
Guess what? Someone has made a talking watch for sailing
(‘Watchorn Talking Countdown Timer’), albeit at about $300.
From 10 minutes it calls every: 30
seconds to 5 minutes, 15 seconds to 2 minutes, 10 seconds to 20 seconds,
15,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,GO! All in an American accent!
However, that brings
up something else that bugs me with countdown timers – why do they have to
make their biggest noise at zero? It’s
not like you’ve fallen asleep on the couch while baking a cake!
Another great reason for using the count up function!
Which watch? In
short, my recommendations for watches: Big watch – Ronstan clear start (the
waterproofing has been improved); wristwatch – Citizen Promaster (an update
from the popular Citizen windsurf watch).
Last, but not least, practice counting down in your head. Ideally, you will be able to countdown for 15 seconds with an accuracy of one second while piloting your boat to a top start.
© Michael Blackburn