Ben Ainslie Laser Campaign Exclusive video
Ben Ainslie is the most successful sailor in Olympic history, winning three gold and a silver medal in the last four Olympics.
In this exclusive video to accompany his book The Laser campaign manual. Ben guides you through the essential skills needed to be the best in your class.
Watch the video below to see Ben in action.
"Reading sailing books and watching sailing videos are also great ways to feed your mind and get you thinking about how to improve."
Ben Ainslie
Starting
Your objective is to stay in position on the line, keeping the boat into the wind. Make sure the vang is off because that makes manoeuvring easier....The key to starting well in any boat is to be that split second ahead of the boats around you so that you are the first boat up to full speed and pop out ahead after the gun has gone. Watch Starting video.
Beating
Common mistakes
Most people...
...don't ease the sheet if they hit a wave and slow down
...don't look ahead at the waves that coming
...don't move their body weight enough
Watch Ben demonstrate the right way to do it.
Tacking
You need not necessarily have the fastest or most extravagant tacking style but it needs to be consistent. If you can string together ten good tacks in a row or a good tack whenever you need it in whatever situation, then your tacking good enough. Now watch the tacking video.
Roll Tacking
Few tips from Ben:
Roll tacking in light wind requires a lot of balance. It is important that only small and subtle rudder movements are made, while body movement and boat heel are used to turn the boat. Unlike the other tacking techniques, the rate of turn needs to be adjusted. Now view the Roll Tacking video.
Windward mark
Most windward marks are hot spots for incidents and protests...If you are in a good position at the front of the fleet then give yourself enough time to prepare for the bear away while not getting onto the starboard layline too early, because the further from the mark you are, the harder it is to hit the layline smack on. Now view the Windward mark video.
Reaching
There are a few definate rules for reaching. Firstly, on very tight reaches it hardly ever pays to sail low. The bad air of the surrounding boats is that much worse when sailing closer to the wind and you are also limited in your ability to accelereate as sailing any higher than the proper course will normally slow you down, especially in strong winds.....Also try not to get forced into sailing high by the boats behind you. If you are confident in your speed then hold your course; unless the boats astern begin to affect your air you will end up gaining. For a demonstration, view the video.
Gybing
Gybing is all about turning the boat when it's going fastes and using a nice smooth roll to help the sail across. It's vital to pick the right wave to gybe on. Sometimes, even though your're sufing, you don't want to gybe because your're coming to the end of the wave. The best time is as you catch a wave, or if you think you can catch the wave by roll gybing. To watch Ben gybing, view the video.
Running
Sailing a Laser fast downwind is an art. There is no right or wrong way to sail downwind and many different techniques seem to be as fast as each other. Watch Ben demonstrate running here.
Leeward Mark
The leeward gate is always quite an exciting part of the race. It is good to have a rough idea of which mark you are going to as you approach. This will be based upon which mark is closest wto you , which way you want to go up the next beat and also which mark has fewer boats rounding it.
To leeward mark
- tighten outhaul
- cunningham
- vang
- mainsheet
- then fine tune after the mark
- finally, slacken the toestrap
Watch how its done
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