Beginning to race in Second Life
From SecondSailing
So, you wanna race? Well, read on then.
Good performance in a race is mostly a result of practice runs, not prior races. Hot laps make practicing fun. And there's always time for a lap or two.
I) Clocking yourself. Learn to use the Start Line and the Wind Setter. Number your boat so the line will track you. Run hot laps. Lots' of them. Post your results on the forum any time you feel good about them. Reset them when you blow it. (It never happened, I swear.) Beating the clock is the best practice for beating other racers. (Although, sometimes I ignore the clock and just run lap after lap after lap without pausing. Then I run one on the clock and see how fast I've gotten.) Hot laps motivate you to get better and show you what works. And you don't get distracted by traffic or lag. It's just you and the boat. And make it fun. I force the sun to sunset and play music during laps. (Where's my sunglasses?)
II) Trimming faster. F-key gestures. (HOW?) Get 'em and learn 'em on your hot laps. Put a paper template above your F-keys that labels them all with their gestures. Don't waste a second of the lap with bad trim. Sails are your motor and the motor is off when the trim is wrong. Somebody else is running their motor at that point and they gained on you. Know when in the turn to hit that trim gesture, <BANG>. You want the sails ready before you end the turn. For the Cat, use hike gestures too, and know when to roll the boat by jumping to the other side. Hot laps, hot laps, hot laps. Bang, Bang, BANG those F-keys. You will get gooood!
III) The fastest track. Once all racers have gestures and are familiar with the course, the primary edge goes to the one who follows the fastest track. The first thing this means is knowing how fast your boat is at every angle. (HOW?) This governs how you design your path from mark to mark. For example, in a race, the Tako should never be pointed between 40 to 89 degrees to the wind. If a straight course to the next mark would require a course of 70, instead tack between 36 and 90 on that side, flashing your spinnaker out for the 90 leg. You'll get there much sooner. And think about which leg to do first. (Hint, think of momentum through turns.) There's finesse, too. Always come in wide of the buoy, so you can turn tight onto it. Take advantage of little shifts in wind that tell you to tack sooner or later than usual. Keep your momentum through turns. Practice your starts so that you can cross the line at full speed *during* the horn. (You never have to recover from a good start!) Hot laps, hot laps, hot laps. Oh, and you'd better start racing against others, because the flood of adrenaline is something you need to get used to or it will mess you up bigtime. And I mean ADRENALINE.
IV) Traffic tactics. Pretty hard to follow your perfect track when there are 9 other boats in the same water, isn't it? (Cory Copeland has a simple solution: beat them to the first mark and you have no more traffic problems! No, really, there is something to be said for this. When you're ahead, it's just another hot lap for you. Bwa-ha-ha!) But realistically, you need to learn who gives way when. Not to engage in aggressive games, just to prevent collisions and create a fair chance for everyone. (HOW?) Add some hailing and protesting gestures. Learn how to do your penalties. Practice them. You can still win a race after a penalty, but not if you hesitate and do sloppy penalty turns. As far as traffic tactics go, racing is really the only practice for this, although some old hands will have good advice to give on this subject.
