How good sailors think: clarity beats complexity
- Dylan Collingbourne
- Jan 5
- 1 min read
One of the biggest differences between developing sailors and consistently strong sailors isn’t fitness, kit, or experience.
It’s how they think while racing.
Strong sailors don’t try to fix everything at once. They focus on one or two important things, make a clear decision, and commit to it.
Clarity beats complexity.
Why doing less often makes you faster
When it’s windy, shifty, or the fleet feels quick, it’s easy to think you need to do more — more adjustments, more theory, more thinking. This often has the opposite effect.
Too much thinking leads to late decisions, messy manoeuvres and lost boat lengths compared to the rest of the flet. The best races usually come from a simple plan done well, not a complicated one done badly. Instead of trying to be perfect, aim to sail cleanly and confidently.
Ask better questions on the water
If you feel rushed or behind, ask yourself:
What is the one thing that will help me most right now?
Where am I actually losing boat lengths?
What can I do cleanly, not perfectly?
These questions help you focus on what matters and stop your mind jumping between too many ideas.
Coach’s tip
For junior sailors, racing improvement comes from clear priorities, not lots of information. One simple goal per race improves consistency, and makes learning easier.
To help sailors achieve their goals with their priorities, we have a handy worksheet for sailors to use at their training sessions, process regattas or even club racing to help develop their skills and understand small and regular improvements lead to big acheievements.
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