Musto Skiff pre-nationals training

Pre-nationals coaching has become a regular occurrence in the Musto Skiff class. This year, ex-musto skiff sailor turned coach Ian 'Bov' Turnbull ran the coaching at Hayling Island, in the 2 days prior to the nationals.

Demand was so high that the 20 spaces were filled in a matter of days. Many more sailors expressed an interest, so Ian asked Graeme Oliver, fellow northerner and top Musto Skiff sailor, to kindly step in to help coaching on the second day, meaning no one was left disappointed.

The training fleet ranged from newcomers who just wanted to learn the ropes to more experienced Musto sailors who were pushing for top results.

On day one there were perfect sunny conditions with the wind building from 8 to 15 knots throughout the day. This made for some great downwind videos of the boats sailing out in the bay.

The main focus of day one were starting and boat handling. Some of the newcomers showed some really good turns of speed and will definitely be working their way up the fleet quickly. The day was rounded off with a video de-brief and a short talk on starting strategy, focusing on how a 70+ fleet at the nationals might effect starting decisions!

Day two's weather was not so kind to the training fleet, with a stiff 18 to 20 knots. Despite some dissappointment, it was felt best to avoid taking the now enlarged fleet of 28 sailors into the bay. However the tide was also against the training fleet as low water was due in the middle of the day. Therefore the decision was made to get everyone out on the water early and get some starting practice in before the harbour dried up.

Even with 2 coaches the fleet was kept in one group as this gave much more realistic starting conditions in preparation for a large fleet in the nationals. This was again followed by a video de-brief from both coaches and their large amount of video work!

For the first 2 days of the nationals Ian also ran a coaching group which involved a morning briefing covering the expected weather conditions and tides. Ian was then on the water videoing the starts and to give a bit of feedback to the sailors between races. A de-brief was held each night.

All of the sailors involved seemed to find the coaching both enjoyable and highly valuable. Ian Turnbull would like to thank Hayling Island Sailing Club for hosting the event and Paul Manning, Musto Skiff class secretary, for all his help and for his never ending enthusiasm towards the class. A big thanks also to Graeme Oliver for his help coaching (when he should have been practising starts himself...).

Ian is planning to run some more training weekends later in the year so if you are interested he can be contacted on ianturnbullmarine@gmail.com.