Plotting The Course Blog

June 1st, 2021

What Sailing Can Teach Teens about Learning and Skill-Building

Even though our teenage years come with a unique set of challenges (and everyone can remember some of their own), one of the great things about these formative years is that it’s a period in which we are in constant learning mode. From the day we’re born, learning is a full-time job, and we soak up new information like a sponge soaks up water. Looking back, my steepest learning curve in sailing was in my high school and college years. Not surprisingly, I found that when I began teaching sailing that teens were often easier to teach than adults. Those teenage years are the point at which we develop our approach to processing new information as we progress academically and intellectually. When I was a teenager, sailing helped me to build a foundation for my approach to learning in general, and it served me well over time, on and off the water. Here are some of the lessons that I picked up along the way while learning to sail.

Master the basics of a new subject first, and subtle improvements will follow naturally

Sailing’s a complex sport. The more questions you ask, the more follow-up questions you’ll have. If you start off thinking about the details of why everything works the way it does, it can become pretty confusing. If you can keep to the basics as you get started, however, more advanced concepts will come much easier. I found both as a young student and an instructor of sailing that allowing time to get the hang of basic steering, sail trim, and right-of-way rules before introducing additional information made the learning process go much smoother than rushing the curriculum. This is also true in any academic pursuit. There are a number of subjects, from math to language studies, which you could find yourself struggling through if you try to skip past the foundation work too fast.

Look to multiple sources of information

The more I got into sailing, the more I sought out every nugget of information I could find from any source available. When I was a teen, the internet wasn’t quite what it is now, so I gathered sailing information from books, videos, magazines, and newspaper articles. I’d read about everything from tactics to yacht design. I’d record races or borrow someone else’s videos and watch them over and over. I’d read the latest news about the sport and look closely at photographs to see what made different boats unique, and how they were being sailed. When you’re that passionate about a subject, you can devote lots of time to studying it, and not consider it a chore. There are a number of ways to learn a new subject, and most people have a method that they find most effective for them. New concepts may click with someone the first time they hear someone describe it to them, some need to see it performed, and others need to actually practice or experience it to fully understand it. To have the most thorough understanding of a topic, however, it’s good to vary your resources and use different methods of gathering your information.

Nothing beats experience

We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect. That’s pretty idealistic, since perfection will elude most of us, no matter what we’re practicing for. Practice does, however, make a massive difference in improvement when compared to other methods of learning. For me, my sailing really took off once I started just putting in some more time on the water. I’d go out regularly after school, alone or with others, for one hour or for a few, just to get used to handling the boat and building my reflexes. When I had someone else to practice with, the time was even better spent. It was only a matter of months after starting this new routine that I noticed that my race results had improved. Most subjects or skills that we want to master take regular practice to get the hang of. If you want to learn a new language, you have to speak it. If you want to learn an instrument, you have to play it. Books and video can be great learning tools, but they are often simply supplemental reinforcement to the practice that is necessary for real improvement.

Set a new standard with each improvement you make

One of the most rewarding things in the world is to work hard at something and to see it pay off. When you’ve accomplished a new personal best in your field of interest, it gives you a great feeling and motivates you to keep going in your efforts. To this day, a particularly fond memory is the first time I won a regatta. It was a little club event, and there were probably only five or six boats entered, but getting that 1st place trophy meant the world to me. It was the start of something new, when first place was no longer so far off. A moment like that is a great time to start setting new goals. When you take time to look at where you currently stand in your field, recognizing the progress you’ve made from your early beginnings can be a great motivator in helping you visualize an open road of new successes ahead.

Ask the masters for advice

Sailing is a tight community full of helpful people. Even though we are often competitors, we count on each other to keep our skills sharp. When the experts open up to the newcomers, it not only enhances that feeling of community, but it raises the level of competition as the bottom of the pack moves up. Of course, the champions can’t be expected to give away all their secrets, or they’d be throwing away the advantage they worked so hard to attain. But, more often than not, leaders in the field, whether it’s in sailing or any other area, tend to be pretty receptive to answering a question once in a while from someone who genuinely wants to learn from the best. You don’t have to know them personally; often you can write to them and you’ll get some response. When Steve Jobs was a young boy, he called Bill Hewlett, co-founder of HP, and kept him on the phone asking questions for half an hour. Hewlett was so impressed with the bright and eager young Jobs that he offered him summer jobs. Take polite advantage of the opportunity to ask a leader in your subject of choice for advice, even if it’s to say, “I’m looking to learn as much as I can, so that I can achieve the kind of success you’ve had. Could you offer me any advice?” You’ll find more often than not that the masters not only don’t mind being asked for advice once in a while, but actually appreciate it.

Learn from peers’ stories

Sailors often recap races back at the dock at the end of a day’s racing with their competitors. Discussing what went right or wrong for both sides can be a great way to see the day’s experience from another perspective. Your friends can always be a great source for learning, even if it’s as an example of what not to do. Teenage years can be tough because many of us have more fear of embarrassment at that time than we do later in life. As we grow, however, the recognition of how imperfect everyone really is provides some degree of comfort with our own little foibles.  If you share a story once in a while with friends about a mistake you’ve made, they’ll often manage to top it with an embarrassing story of their own. On the other hand, they may be able to offer some advice from their own experience that will serve you well for the future. Either way, we’ve all got stories to share that can benefit someone else, even if just to share a laugh.

Safety first

Sailors know what a quick and painful lesson a boat can teach you if you’re careless. Over the years, more and more safety measures have been added to prevent injury as boats get faster and more powerful, from mandatory lifejackets to helmets in some cases. Occasionally, we test the boundaries to see how far we can push equipment before it fails. We don’t want to see a mast break or a sail blow out if we can prevent it though, so it takes a lot of extra diligence when experimenting for more power. It’s important to always tread carefully when pushing your limits to prevent catastrophe. Just as smart sailors take a safe and conservative approach when moving into new territory, so should anyone starting a new risky process. Whether learning to drive, learning a new sport, starting a new workout routine, or anything that could have an aspect of danger to it, be sure not to rush into things without learning all you can beforehand, having a responsible person on hand to supervise and provide support if needed, and remaining fully engaged and alert as you gain competence and confidence in your efforts.

Keep thorough notes

Every student knows the importance of taking notes in class; there’s no way to remember 100% of the flood of information that comes at us over a long period of time. Keeping notes as we take in new data is a common sense way to be engaged in listening as well as to have easy access to the information that we may want to return to later. For sailors, lots of little adjustments happen in the process of tuning a boat for speed, and that means a lot of numbers to remember. The sailor has to know what all the settings were when he started out, what the conditions of sea and wind were, what he changed along the way, and what the results of those changes were. Without taking notes, it would take much longer to actually learn anything from the process. If you’re trying to get a handle on new information, whether it’s English Literature or just putting together a shopping list, write down everything you’ll want to remember for later—notes are always more reliable than memory.

Learn by teaching

Sailors who reach a certain level of ability often go on to teach others how to sail. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement, since the student gets to learn from an experienced instructor, and the instructor gets to reinforce their own expertise by returning to the information repeatedly, and by observing the sport from a new perspective. For a student of any subject, it can be of tremendous benefit to tutor someone else or to join a study group. Simply by processing the information enough to talk about it with someone else, your grasp of the topic is strengthened and your recall of the information improves. If you get the chance to teach another person about a subject you’re learning, take advantage of the opportunity—you’ll find that being a teacher makes you a better student.

Be objective about your successes and failures

The learning process requires an understanding of what you’re doing right and wrong. It’s easy when things go right to assume that everything went perfectly and no improvement is needed. It’s also easy in the face of failure to assume that bad luck was the only cause for the result, and if only the stars had been properly aligned, we would have come out on top. The trick to improving in the wake of both positive and negative outcomes is to be honest with ourselves in looking back at our performance. This period of review is a good time to take a little credit for what we did right and to point out what we did wrong and look for ways to improve. Taking credit where it’s due is just as important as taking criticism, because it helps us to stay motivated and to keep things in perspective. When all you have for yourself is criticism, you wind up putting a lot of undue pressure on yourself, and you’ll be unable to take much pleasure in any accomplishment. When you can balance the feedback you give yourself with points both positive and critical, it will be easier to make improvements in your performance over time.

Rick Arneson, M.B.A., is the author of Plotting the Course and is a lifelong sailor.

August 11th, 2020

Keep Calm and Sail On: Facing Change in the COVID-19 Era

The coronavirus pandemic has been a challenge for everyone the world over, and we have all suffered disruptions to our plans to some degree or another. It’s during times like these that our patience and adaptability are truly tested. For those who struggle with such disruptive change so far from their own control, adaptability can be an emotional challenge. There is a well-known prayer, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Knowing the difference between the things we can change and those we can’t is a challenge for everyone, and sailors are no exception. 

Change is, after all, a fact of life for sailors. Conditions are constantly changing, and the sailor must change with them. Change itself is only part of the challenge for a racing sailor, though; often it’s uncertainty that is truly unsettling. Tides are an example of predictable change; we know what the tide will be doing every day and when it will shift. Windshifts are another story; patterns may emerge, but surprises are very possible and change is constant.

The strategy in any race is to take advantage of each shift as it presents itself and to position the boat for the next one expected to come. Despite thoughtful and responsible planning, though, winds can shift and shear in different directions, spots of windless holes can appear on the course seemingly at random, and freak waves and other obstacles can pop up to get in the way. It’s a constant mental challenge to not only think ahead, but to react when the weather suddenly offers up surprises. These sorts of things test a sailor’s mettle not only in terms of skill, but patience and mental fortitude. It’s discouraging to know you’ve sailed as fast as you could, played every shift as you should have, and yet still got shafted when the breeze changed. At these moments, the sailor’s best hope of managing that frustration and staying focused is to recognize that they can’t control what happens outside their own boat. What they can control is their response to the changes that occur.

Sailboat racing, like any competitive field, has its share of high achievers who are used to a great degree of personal control over elements of their daily lives ashore. The sailors who stick with the sport over the long run and manage to succeed the most often are those who can accept what they can’t change, particularly the weather conditions and the actions of others around them, and focus on changing what they can by planning diligently for races, optimizing their boatspeed, or getting enough practice. Understanding the difference between what can and can’t be changed is how the patience and persistence to move through disruptive change is developed.

The pandemic we face in 2020 is an agent of disruption the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetime, and many unknown challenges still lie ahead for each of us, at least in the short term. In the frustration and discouragement that we all feel from the damage done to our daily lives and our own emotional wellbeing, we can restore some degree of hope and confidence with a change of focus. Rather than concentrating on the storm around us, thus allowing fear to take over, we can focus on our own actions in response to these conditions. Like a sailor facing volatility on the water, each of us needs to think ahead, concentrate on our priorities, be ready to adapt at any point, put safety first, and of course, never lose hope when things are hardest.

Rick Arneson, M.B.A., is the author of Plotting the Course and is a lifelong sailor.

May 3rd, 2018

Five Common Nautical Expressions

Have you ever wondered about the origin of some common expression or figure of speech that you find yourself using in everyday conversation? Some words and phrases have managed to work themselves into our language over time and become a part of the modern day lexicon, even though we often don’t know where they came from. Plenty of those expressions that we throw around today have nautical origins, even though their usage has spread far from the water’s edge. So just for fun, here are five common expressions that you might hear on land for which we have sailors to thank.

“Taken aback”

This term, now often used when we are stunned by something we’ve seen or heard, refers to sails inverting when a windshift or change of course causes them to fill on their opposite side and act as a brake. In essence, a person who is taken aback by something is, like a boat, stopped in their tracks.

“Three sheets to the wind”

Sheets are the proper sailing term for the rope that secures a sail. On square-riggers, each corner of a sail was secured by separate sheets, and if they came loose, the sail would flap in the breeze. A sail with three sheets loose in the wind would be flailing out of control, much like a drunk person to whom this term would be commonly applied today.

“The bitter end”

The bitter end refers to the end of a line on a boat; when you’ve run out of rope, you’ve reached the bitter end. The term as we often hear it on land typically refers to the end of a long effort, whether or not parties involved happen to feel bitter about it.

“High and dry”

When we refer to a person being left high and dry, we mean they are out of options and have nowhere to go. This refers to a boat that is beached, perhaps after the tide has run out after being anchored too close to shore, or washing up from a storm.

“Loose cannon”

Usually referring to a person who is out of control and causing harm in some fashion, this term comes from the havoc that could ensue if the rope securing a cannon on a warship came loose or broke, causing the heavy cannon to roll loose on deck when recoiling from firing.

 

It’s a safe bet that we’re all using nautical terms now and then without even realizing it, sometimes quite frequently. You could even use all of the above expressions together and come up with a sentence like: “Even though that loose cannon Frank was three sheets to the wind at the office party, I was taken aback to hear that the board chose to stand by him to the bitter end, rather than fire him and leave him high and dry.” Although sailing has a language all its own, it has still managed to make its own contribution to the English language for sailors and landlubbers alike.

 

Rick Arneson, M.B.A., is the author of Plotting the Course and is a lifelong sailor.

May 10th, 2017

JFK: Tied to the Ocean

JFKsailing 001 (2)May 29, 2017 marks the 100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy. Millions of Americans may find themselves at this time reflecting on the life of a man whose legacy still shines brightly in our national consciousness. Regardless of politics or party, sailors everywhere share a special connection to President Kennedy. Other presidents have sailed recreationally, of course—Franklin D. Roosevelt, for one—but Jack Kennedy had a lifelong passion for the sport.

Read the rest of this entry »

September 15th, 2014

Self-Reliance: A Practical Approach

Self-reliance is a value that sailors generally come to appreciate through experience. After all, the ability to handle difficult situations on one’s own can make a critical difference when nature throws a curveball. And yet, I can say that I’ve had to find a balance point in my approach to sailing and to life on land between do-it-yourself cures and reliance on professionals in order to come to the most effective solution to a new problem.

Read the rest of this entry »

July 2nd, 2014

The Sport with a Thousand Faces

Occasionally debate rises among sailors over what the appropriate term for our sport should be. While “yachting” has been a traditional, all-inclusive term for generations, “sailing” has come into much more prominent usage in the modern era, largely in order to distinguish particular formats of the sport. Out of appreciation for the sport’s heritage, I personally don’t mind the term “yachting” when it comes to sailboat racing in general. Even so, I never say that I am going “yachting”, because it does sound too formal for the athletic and competitive activity that sailing as I know it actually is. As the sailing classes in competition today are both visually and structurally a far cry from the classic yachts of yesteryear, “sailing” has emerged over “yachting” as the more popular term for sailboat racing in many, but not all, cases. While “yachting” and “sailing” can be synonymous terms in some formats of the sport, they can be separate and distinct in others.

Read the rest of this entry »

June 17th, 2014

The Meaning of Ambition

In writing Plotting the Course, I found myself employing a particular word time and again throughout the text: ambition. It is a word that I use to describe the quest for growth, improvement, and achievement through setting goals and taking action to make great things happen. And yet, it’s also a word heard all too often these days in a negative context, as if to imply greed or unscrupulousness. What I suspect has happened in some circles is that the word ambition is being confused with blind ambition. Blind ambition means obsessively pursuing a goal at any cost, blind to morality or consequence, while ambition itself is the driving force behind improvement and accomplishment.

Read the rest of this entry »

May 19th, 2014

Five Fun Sailing Facts

Are you a newcomer to sailing and interested in hearing more about the sport? Or maybe a seasoned sailing veteran looking for some tidbits to share at the next party when people ask about what you do? Whether you’ve heard each of these fun facts about sailing already or not, they’re worth sharing to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the sport of sailing: Read the rest of this entry »

May 5th, 2014

Back to School

I recently had the opportunity to attend a course of study at the University of Oxford, and have returned from the experience with a renewed appreciation for learning as a lifelong pursuit. Even though I completed my MBA a while back, I wanted to revisit the classroom to delve into the issues facing the global business environment today. I was thrilled to be accepted to the program, knowing what a unique and substantive experience I would be in for. The course covered a range of issues, giving us a lot of information to process in a short time, but it taught us so much about global enterprise and how interconnected international markets can be.

I found that the benefits of attending this course stretched beyond being better-informed on the subject matter itself. Here are some of those benefits that anyone could derive from getting back to school: Read the rest of this entry »

March 2nd, 2014

Safety First

Whenever Southern California experiences any kind of measurable rainfall, the roads become disaster areas with widespread auto accidents. More often than not, such accidents could be avoided by driving more conservatively, but time and again we see a driver putting the pedal to the metal as the rain begins to fall. As someone who’s crashed in the rain before, I’d like to share a sailing anecdote that illustrates the value of a little extra caution.

Read the rest of this entry »