Training to Win: Training exercises for solo boats, groups and those with a coach (Sail to Win)

If you are a new sailing coach this is a great resource for drills. Too many high school coaches I’ve worked with have only 5 or so drills then rely too heavily on short course racing to take up practice time. Junior program summer coaches, drawn from the club’s graduates are even more limited. While this book is for more experienced sailors and coaches it provides the resources to get from a handful of drills to a full set of drills in your toolkit.If you are a program parent/leader or flag officer at your club this book provides reasonable resources for you to evaluate the on the water coaching skills of Directors or Head Instructors.If you are a new college or assistant coach these drills will add to your toolbox and maybe show your head coach a thing or two. It will still provide new material for the experienced Head coach.The book is a slim 69 pages but doesn’t really start till page 9, so 60 pages of photos, diagrams and drills. Ten chapters: Introduction (warmup), Starting, Tacking, Gybing, Covering, Mark Rounding, Upwind, Reaching, Downwind, Fitness. Each chapter is between 3 and 11 pages long. The chapter starts with the elements of the area, then covers 4-8 drills. If you have a 4-day practice week and 1-2 days of competition, you can take two areas per day to work on, Starting and Upwind for example, and work through each area during your practice week. This builds your speed pyramid throughout the week and season. Notes in each chapter provide context and tips for the number of boats training at one time, available coach boats, or whether you are training by yourself.The author is one of the best in the biz and most recently coached Asia’s only Olympic Gold Medalist. Many of the photos are of Laser training in China. If you are serious about producing better sailors, or even improving yourself, this is an easy to refer to resource with diagrams and full color pictures including aerial photos.

Easy & simple format to understand with ready made training exercises & sessions to do. I went out & did a few of the exercises 15 min after starting to read the areas I need improvement in