Using Regattas in Year One to Benchmark Progress: A Strategic Approach

The first year of any Olympic campaign is a foundational phase, and its success often hinges on the clarity of the goals set for this crucial period. For sailors navigating year one, international regattas are less about perfecting racing tactics and more about using these events as critical benchmarks to measure progress in the areas they are focusing on at home—especially boat handling and fundamental skills.

Why Benchmarking Matters in Year One

The demands of international competition expose sailors to the rigors of elite-level racing. These regattas, while not the primary driver of skill development early on, provide an invaluable lens to assess the efficacy of training programs and highlight areas that require fine-tuning. At this stage, success isn’t defined by podium finishes but by how well the progress in practice translates to high-pressure racing environments.

For sailors focused on improving their boat-handling repertoire, frequent attendance at international events is not necessary. What matters most is the quality of instruction and coaching between regattas. With a robust training program led by world-class coaches, teams can minimize international appearances during year one while maximizing the value of each event they do attend.

Maximizing the Value of International Events

Because these regattas are fewer in number during the initial stages of a program, the stakes for making the most of them are higher. Each event should be approached with meticulous preparation and purpose. To ensure sailors and teams are performing at their best:

• Training Should Peak Ahead of Regattas: Arrive ready to "fire on all cylinders," with boat handling, decision-making, and mental preparation refined in advance.

• Data-Driven Evaluation: Events offering advanced tracking systems, such as SAP Analytics, are ideal during this stage. These tools provide a wealth of data that allows sailors to evaluate performance metrics and compare their skills with the rest of the fleet. This quantitative feedback is essential for tracking progress and identifying specific areas to address back home.

Striking the Right Balance

Overexposure to international regattas in year one can dilute the focus on fundamentals and lead to burnout. Instead, teams should prioritize a balanced schedule that allocates ample time for targeted training while integrating just enough competition to validate and refine skills. By year two, when the focus shifts more toward speed requiring more time around other boats, and more time on the race course. The foundation laid in year one will allow sailors to excel.

Key Takeaways

International regattas in year one are not about accumulating victories but about validating progress. Thoughtful preparation and strategic event selection will ensure sailors gain meaningful insights while maintaining the focus on their long-term development. Prioritize quality over quantity, use every opportunity to benchmark, and return to the training base ready to build on the lessons learned.

With this approach, sailors can make steady, deliberate strides toward excellence, ensuring they are ready to shine on the world stage when the time comes.

Next Generation American Sailing

In 2009 I ran the first ever "Skiff Squad Bootcamp" in Santa Barbara, California. It was attended by 29er sailors from around the country, and many of the alumni stayed connected to the program for years to follow, winning medals at the 29er Worlds and the Youth Worlds, attending prestigious universities as part of their sailing teams, and competing in the Olympics, SailGP, and the America's Cup. By all measures the program was a massive success. Two key ingredients to this success were:

1. A regional training model, focused on client feedback.

2. A financial model that offered elite coaching for a fraction of the cost of a private coach, while allowing coaches to make enough money to pay the bills.

At the Olympic level, such a model is difficult to build because the geographic scope is larger, the number of teams is much smaller, and the available resources are more contested.

In junior sailing, a coach who commits to building a regional program can impact many generations of athletes and provide the framework needed to win to a large number of teams across generations. This creates an ownership model in which coaches take ownership of the program, and shepherd athletes along the pathway to top level performance.

In contrast, at the Olympic level, each group of athletes requires a specialized program, so one size does not fit all. The strengths and weaknesses of the small number of top tier teams and athletes play an outsized role in determining what types of coaching and support are needed at each step of the way. As such, for an Olympic program to create generational success it must be laser focused on building a framework of support that caters individually to each team, and each athlete specifically. Nowhere in the world is this transition from Junior Sailing to Olympic Sailing more pronounced than in the United States, where we have some of the most robust junior sailing programs in the world, and one of the most challenging transitions when it comes to running a successful Olympic campaign. Success in this endeavor means fundamentally flipping the ownership model that athletes are used to as junior sailors and college sailors. I believe that we must help our athletes transition from a paradigm where “the program owns the athletes”, to the a model that can succeed in producing robust support systems for diverse teams at the top level, by creating a system where “the athletes own the program”.

The fundamental belief behind the US Skiff Squad project is that this means that coaches and administrators must build a system to develop leadership in athletes while simultaneously empowering the athletes to make existential decisions about the very programs, coaches and administrators who are enabling the empowerment. We envision a future where organizations from around the sailing world rally behind the athletes with a singular focus: supporting athletes to realize their potential.

This requires new levels of transparency and trust. The US Skiff Squad project is an attempt to build this system in the American ecosystem of sailing. It is a coaching structure focused first and foremost on leadership development in athletes, and empowerment of those athletes in the decision making process. The program does not seek to “own” athletes, rather it is the other way around. We believe that the athletes must own the team.

In my next few articles I’ll get into some specifics of what that looks like.