The Roundup

Every once in awhile, we'll be gathering some articles, videos and information to keep your bow down and stay in phase with the sailing world! This curated series will often times include things that are not Opti specific - but aren't we trying to keep the big picture anyways? Enjoy!

Solo Sailing Drills And Safety - McLaughlin Boat Works

A great article on making sure everything is up to par before heading out alone - especially useful to those of us who may be able to go sailing during quarantine!

IODA Sustainability Topic 3 Published

The International Class continues to publish its publication on sustainability and education - as we wrote in our "Is This A Chance To Start Fresh?" article, we think this information would be fantastic to make part of sail education curriculums across the country.

Mr Childers' Boat House Episode 6 Finale

The child-friendly series from the US Sailing Starboard Portal concluded with Episode 6: Having Fun At Sailing School this month. This series is great to show your youngest ones who perhaps are starting to sail for the first time this year.

VELA - Episode 4 Finale

What happens when 4 surfer friends get together on a Gunboat 55 and go on a 2,500 nm adventure through the Pacific? This amazingly well-composed series ended with Episode 4 this month, and is sure to engage the youngest and oldest sailors in your family. Make sure to watch in the highest video settings you can!

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What Should Be In Your Dock Box/Ditty Bag

Although the Optimist class is comprised of children, the fact of the matter is that serious racing happens in the Optimist class and that carries with it needs for equipment and replacement parts. Any sailor or coach worth their salt will tell you that you need a ditty bag or tackle box to carry spare parts and tools in order to keep your Opti up or in case of technicals - breakage - out on the race course. The historical example of a ditty bag, complete with marlinspike So what should you keep in your ditty bag? At the bare minimum, your ditty bag needs to have tools to repair or adjust parts of your boat. A good set of screwdrivers, of medium length, pliers, and a crescent wrench are absolute musts Example contents of a ditty bag. Note the ample variety of tape, tools and spare line Next, you'd want to add a roll of sail tape, the thick kind, to patch up tears or holes that might happen. I cannot stress the importance of dealing with that sooner rather than later, because...

Ask Coach: What Is A Leebow?

Timing + Technique = Control! Welcome to Ask Coach! Where we take your questions on Tactics, Strategy, and Boathandling. In our first installment, let's cover the Lee Bow. This is aimed at beginning to intermediate level racers in order to let them formulate questions they can bring to their coach, so we've tried to incorporate appropriate explanations and language. We think it's important to agree on the vocabulary coaches and sailors use, so as there are many different ways to explain the same thing - make sure you know the difference between Tactics and Strategy What Are Tactics? Out on the race course, you'll be faced with many situations where you have to make a decision, sometimes before you even get to the situation (ahem - *mark roundings*). These decisions are what we call tactics. You can think of tactics as the little steps you take in order to achieve your strategy of success. What Is Strategy? Strategy is the overarching plan for the regatta, race or par...

The Roundup Returns: October 2023

SailGP Upset: USA Climbs To 3rd After Cadíz For those who don't follow SailGP, the Formula 1 of Sailing, Team USA has come in with the sneak and climbed to 3rd overall for Season 4 with a decisive win in Cadiz this past week. Skipper Jimmy Spithill together with flight controller Taylor Canfield (who we interviewed here in 2020) took the team through light wind, non-foiling conditions and surprised everyone with the win. The U.S. beat both rivals across all metrics - picking up the highest average speed of 32.7 km/h, highest 58% flight time and executing the fewest number of maneuvers - just six. The Americans also sailed the shortest distance - a total of 4.9 km/h versus ROCKWOOL DEN’s 5.7km and Australia’s 6km. Spithill went on to dedicate the win to the team’s flight controller Hans Henken, who was injured during an incident in Taranto. While this was ‘such a massive blow for the team’, the incident gave the team ‘a real amount of purpose’, Spithill said. “It was a...

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