Golfers call it the setup routine. Plant your feet, form your grip, address the ball, do the waggle (a la Kevin Costner & Renee Russo in Tin Cup), focus on the ball, and swing. The better the golfer, the more consistently they repeat the same routine each time they hit the ball. Why? Because using the same setup each time helps a golfer focus their mind, reduce anxiety, and consciously or subconsciously get ready for their “moment of performance.” Watch any top-flight athlete in any sport—they always have a warm-up routine. Baseball players don’t step up to the plate at the bottom of the ninth and get creative with how they create their batting stance—that’s why they have batting practice. The best individual athletes have evolved a routine to help them warm-up and get ready for performance, and it is no different with teams. Watch how baseball players warm up on the field between innings. The players may change but the patterns are the same. Baseball players aren’t practicing between innings, they are loosening up, refreshing their body’s intuition about time and distance, and getting used to the conditions on the field that day, that inning.

Sailboat racing is no different. Whether you are singlehanding a laser or running the program for a seventy-foot Grand Prix monster, developing a consistent prestart routine will help get you and your team ready for your “moment of performance”—which in our sport is usually about an hour long! If you’ve been racing for a while, you probably know that feeling of being “in the groove” during a race: the tacks are smooth, the boat is moving well, everyone is working together, you’re not “thinking about the race,” you’re just “racing.” You might also know what it feels like when you feel unprepared for a start. Maybe you were late leaving the dock and didn’t check the line. Maybe you’re wearing the wrong gear or realize you haven’t eaten since eight o’clock and now it’s one PM. Setting up a pre-start routine will help you consistently arrive at the starting line with a plan, with a sense of what the race course is like that day (what the wind and tides are doing), and physically ready for the race.

Once you have a routine, do it every time. Try to do the same steps regardless of whether it is blowing 3 knots or thirty. Assign roles so everyone (or every position) on board has a job to do and stick with those roles—the time to change things up is off the water, not in the few minutes before the warning gun fires. Do the same steps even when you have substitute crew, even if someone on the boat needs to help the newbies with their tasks. And don’t skip your routine if you are racing in a multi-day regatta—do the same warm-up each morning of the regatta, and between each race, even if it feels like you’ve done a thousand tacks, gybes, and sets already that week. So develop a pre-start routine that gets you and your team ready, physically and psychologically. Here are twelve ideas that you can use as a starting point to crafting your own prestart routine, designed to get yourself, your team, and your boat to the starting fully prepared and ready for the battle ahead.

Gear up, eat, drink, and be merry

First off, make sure everyone is physically set for racing. Foul weather gear goes on or off and everything not in use gets stowed. Break out the lunch/snacks/liquids. If it is the first race of the day the crew is probably stoked up from breakfast and their morning triple-shot mocha latte, but as the day goes on, and especially when there is not a lot of time between the end of one race and the start of the next, make sure your crew has the energy they need to perform at their best. Bring extra power bars or gel packets on board in case the food runs out and the race committee surprises you with one more race just as the breeze tops twenty knots. Make sure everyone is drinking enough water or sports drink—there’s nothing like dehydration to sap a crew’s energy, and it can happen on a ninety-degree day or a fifty-degree day. On the flip side, anybody needing to use the head or “take a rest” off the side of the boat needs to get it done and get geared back up and ready to race.

How does the saying go, “cleanliness is next to speediness”? Well, maybe that’s not it exactly, but swamping your Thistle when your middle crew steps on a water bottle and falls into the boat as you try execute a roll tack fifteen seconds after the start is no way to win a race. Make sure the boat is clean and organized, with lines, gear, sails, and food stowed away. Bail or sponge any water out of the bilge, no need to carry any extra weight. Finally, this is a great time to tell a few jokes and get people loosened up before the race starts and the intensity hits the red zone.

Discuss the weather & tides, collect wind data, and look at the geography

If you haven’t already done this before leaving the dock, discuss the day’s weather and tide forecasts as you head out to the course. (Check out RaceOneDesign’s weather page for detailed weather and wind information, including the WindTrak, for nearly 500 venues in North America.)

Once you get to the vicinity of the racing area, start checking the wind direction every few minutes until the starting sequence, and then one more time within the sequence. Make it one crewmember’s responsibility to write down the wind numbers in a two-column table (time and true wind direction) on the deck or the back of the SI’s or someplace where it wont get lost. If you can record even twenty minutes of readings before a race you’ll start to see a picture of what the wind is doing. Check the wind a couple of minutes into the sequence, with around three minutes left before the gun. (Driver and trimmers should then look for shifts in the last couple of minutes by watching sail trim as they reach down the line on port or starboard. For example, if you’re approaching on port tack in the last minute looking for a spot in the middle of the line and note your main and jib suddenly start to luff, you’re likely in a right shift, so keep going and try for a committee boat start.)

If you’re on a lake or river, look for nearby landforms that might provide a geographic lift or header, and sail to those areas to see if you can detect what is happening. Or find a partner with about the same boatspeed as you and sail straight for three minutes on opposite tacks in the middle of the course, then tack and converge to get more data on which side of the course might be favored.

When you are doing your warm-up sailing (see #3 on the list), record your upwind and downwind compass headings. Unless you have a sophisticated electronics system or a head for numbers, write down your numbers on each tack, and start to get a feel for the median, high, and low numbers on each tack. This information will be especially valuable as you look for the first shift after the start and work upwind on the first leg.

Warm-up but don’t practice!

Get to the race course early enough to do a few minutes of warm-up before the first race of the day. In about fifteen minutes you can sail upwind, do a few tacks, do a rounding of a windward mark (if no marks are available, just call distance to mark for a spot in the water and use your imagination), set the kite, gybe a couple of times, and do a full-on leeward mark rounding with spinnaker douse. Don’t do your hardest maneuvers (gybe set, reach-to-reach gybe in twenty knots, Mexican takedown), since the goal is to get everyone warmed up, not to tire them out or test the crew on the hard stuff.

The crew work during the warm-up doesn’t have to be perfect. This is not a practice session, those should be scheduled for another time. This is not the time to critique someone’s footwork crossing the boat or teach the crew a new technique you just read about in a magazine. You don’t want people changing things just before the race or over-thinking their actions during the race. Just help your crew remember what it feels like to do their jobs in whatever conditions you’re in for that race. If you’ve had a long lunch break between races, or enjoyed a little boat-to-boat Frisbee on the water waiting for the wind to show up on a hot day, try to squeeze in a few tacks before you kick it into racing mode once the wind comes up. Once you’re done with your warm-up, head for the starting line for the rest of your pre-start routine.

Decide the first leg strategy

It can be as simple as play the shifts up the middle or more complicated, like “go left, short tack the beach, then cross to the right for current relief”. No matter what your strategy or who’s job it is to figure it out, just make sure you have one before you start the race. Every body on board should be looking around at the race course, the sky, the water, looking for clues that can translate into an advantage on the race course. Does the water look darker on one side than the other, or show more whitecaps? These could be telling signs that there’s current relief or more pressure on one side. Is a there a storm brewing in the distance? Could mean that one side will have more pressure as you close in on the windward mark. It’s a good idea to give everyone on the boat an opportunity to speak up before the race with their ideas, hunches, even superstitions, about which side looks better, but let one person (driver, tactician, navigator) make the strategy. This person should also be responsible for knowing or bringing the weather forecast and tide forecast for the day.

Choose the sails and set the sail controls for the start and first leg

Usually it is the driver or tactician who decides which sails to race with (jib or genoa? .75 or .5 kite?) and decides how they want their sails shaped before the start. Appoint someone to be the “speed czar” on the boat, responsible for making sure the sails are set for maximum speed before the start. Setting sail controls for the start usually means getting the boat ready for “first gear” for maximum acceleration to get a jump off the line, but in very light or very strong winds it may mean powering up or down the sail plan to give the boat more power or control during the start sequence.

Figure out the favored (upwind) end of the starting and get a line sight

This is one step in determining where on the line you want to start. Geometry says that the end of the line that is further upwind is closer to the windward mark, so the closer you start to the upwind end, the more of an advantage you will have over boats that start further from the upwind end. In effect, you’ll immediately be on a higher “ladder rung” than boats further from the favored end. There are several tried and true ways to determine the favored end of the line for the how-to’s. Have the forward crew do the math or look at the angles and tell the crew—“pin end favored by a little,” or “committee boat end is favored by 15 degrees” or “line is square” or whatever it is.

Of course, you are likely not the only boat figuring out which end of the line is further upwind, so there could be a traffic jam at that end. The more upwind end of the line is a “higher reward, higher risk” investment, especially when the pin end is favored; you might choose to start in the third of the line nearest the upwind end to give yourself some breathing room. And watch out for last minute wind shifts that can change the line geometry.

Some people swear by the line sight, others never use them. If you like to start in the middle of line, a line sight can be an excellent antidote to “mid-line sag,” the phenomenon of the middle of the line sagging to leeward at the start since few people in the middle of the line can really tell exactly where the line is. To get a line sight, sail to just beyond one end of the line, align the two ends of the line (pin and flag on the boat that marks the end of the line) with a point on the far shore that you can readily identify, then sail to the other end of the line and repeat. As you approach the line, you can now look to either end and tell whether you’re behind the line or OCS.

Write down the course, find the marks, and know your SI’s

Someone needs to be responsible for checking the course, which can be signaled or changed up to the warning signal, five minutes before the start. Write the mark progression down (not just the course number or letter), and check the sailing instructions to make sure you know what the marks look like and where should be located. Look upwind to find the first mark. Use this information to determine which tack will be the longer tack upwind; this is important information for the tactician. Look downwind to see the leeward marks. And don’t point! It just makes it easier for your competitors to see what you’re seeing. Be especially careful if you are sailing in an Olympic circle with permanent marks—find your marks on the circle and try to use marks on land to help you discern one mark of the circle from the next. Make sure everyone on board—especially the driver—knows what the course is, and whether there is an offset mark or a gate.

It is also important to discuss any restrictions written into the sailing instructions, such as a restricted start/finish line, shipping channel, or areas of non-navigable water. If the race committee provides other information, such as the compass heading to the first mark, write that down as well. In a dinghy like a Lightning or Thistle, the forward crew is a good choice for these jobs. For small keelboats like an Olson 30 or J/24, the kite trimmer or pit person is a good choice. The same person can be the keeper of the sailing instructions—they need to be a dry place such as a turtle bag or dry bag or someplace in the cabin easily reached, such as just inside the hatch or in the pocket of the spinnaker launchers.

Determine where you want to start

This is a much more subtle and complicated question than just figuring out the upwind end of the starting line. There are many factors to consider when figuring out where you want to start: the upwind end of the line, your first leg strategy, your position in the rankings at a multi-race event, the wind and current, who you are trying to beat or is trying to beat you, the size of the fleet, even your mental and physical preparation for the race.

Start with your strategy—do you need to get to the right side as quickly as possible? If so, you might want to start near the boat even if the pin end of the line is favored. Is there current relief on the left and the pin is favored, but you’re a conservative starter? Pick a spot three-quarters of the way down the line. If you’re not sure where to start but are confident in your ability to start, try the middle. If you are new to the sport, stay near the boat so you can tack away and more quickly get into a clear lane. How about current—is the current going to push the fleet down the line, leaving the door open at the committee boat for a quick exit to the right side of the course. There are even some regatta factors to consider—is there one boat you need to beat in the regatta? If so, you might want to get closer to the upwind end of the line than they are, or even pull a few match racing techniques on them to get them behind you at the start. And what’s your physical and mental state? Are you fatigued or feeling unsure? You might want to start in the middle of the line and away from the fray at the ends. Even if your primary decision-making criteria is which end is more upwind, unless the end of the starting line or one side of the course is heavily favored, making it critical that you be as close as possible to that end, you probably won’t want to start exactly at the race committee boat or the pin—everyone else will be starting there as well. More common is a request to start “in the boat third of the line” or “near the pin” or “pin-half of the line.”

It doesn’t matter really matter who makes the decision (though clearly you want to pick someone with more experience), but have a process in place to make the decision and then leave it up to the driver and trimmers to get the boat to that position on the starting line. It is a good idea to determine where to start on the line no later than after your last wind shot at around three minutes before the start, that way the driver can get to the either end of the line with time to set up—although in light air you may need to make the decision earlier since it can take a while to sail down a long starting line though traffic in a four knot breeze. Also, be on the lookout for wind shifts in the final minute or two before the start of the race, as these can change where you want to start.

Count down the start and watch the flags

Someone—or something—needs to count down the time to the start. Keelboats often have a countdown timer mounted on the aft face of the mast as part of their electronics package (and some dinghy sailors mount a large face countdown watch in the same spot), but even with an expensive electronics staring back at you it is prudent to have at least one person on board set their watch in case the display fails during the sequence. And even with a countdown timer visible to the driver, it is better to have a crewmember verbally count down the sequence—the driver is usually busy looking around, evaluating threats, and reacting in the last minute, and hearing the time is far less disruptive to the driver’s concentration than having to look into the boat and process the visual information on the display. So have your crew call out the time every 15 seconds within five minutes, every five seconds within 1 minute, and then a second-by-second countdown within 20 seconds.

Assign someone to watch the start flags during the sequence. If no one is paying attention to the flags after the five minute (warning) signal, you could miss the I flag (see RRS rule 30.1), the Z flag (rule 30.2), or the black flag (30.3), any of which could significantly change your starting strategy. These flags fly at the preparatory signal (instead of the P flag) and come down at one minute before the start.

Call the distance to the line and watch for attackers

Designate someone on your crew to count down the distance to the line in the last couple of minutes of the start sequence. If you’re racing a keelboat and send someone to the bow, have him or her use hand signals instead of trying to yell back to the driver. There’s no agreed-upon system for hand signals, so try something simple first, like five, four, three, two, one fingers for boat lengths from the line, closed fist for within a half boatlength, and vigorous pointing with one finger downward for over the line. It is much better to have the crewmember on the bow signal the distance from the line rather than trying to “drive” the boat at the start by signaling the driver to go up or down, faster or slower. The prestart requires quick response by the entire boat, so having the driver rely on signals passed back from the bow just slows down the team’s reaction time—a bad idea.

Position the boat on the starting line and watch for attackers

You already know where on the line you want to start (#8), so it is up to the driver, trimmers, and tactician to get the boat positioned on the line and ready for the start. In smaller boats, even small keelboats, the tactical situation just before the start changes so quickly that it is difficult to have anyone but the driver calling boat maneuvers in the last minute before the gun. The driver (or tactician, if he or she is calling the prestart) needs to use clear and consistent language when communicating with the crew during prestart maneuvers. Some drivers might say “slow the boat” or “jib off, main on” or “no jib”, while others will say “ease the jib 2 feet”—it all depends on the experience of your driver and your trimmers. Develop a vocabulary and be consistent, and speak loudly when the wind is up to make sure you trimmers hear you above the noise of wind and nearby luffing sails.

Someone on the boat needs to watch for attackers as you set up in final position for the start, especially if you’ve set up early and have a big, tempting hole to leeward of you. Train your crew to watch for port tack boats that are coming up the line looking for a spot to tack into—a quick pivot with jib on and main off will point your boat towards the attacker and may convince them to continue sailing up the line. You can then pivot back to a close-hauled course with main on and jib off and retain at least some of your hole to leeward.

Attackers can also come in from behind and establish an overlap to leeward, stealing your hole and even forcing you up and over the line. If a boat is approaching from behind, push your main out and turn the boat a little more downwind (again, jib on and main off) before the overlap occurs to increase the size of your profile on the line. The attacking boat may reach further down the line looking for a larger hole. If they do establish an overlap, they have to give you opportunity to stay clear as you pivot upwind to avoid them. Wait for the overlap to occur, then (and only then!) start pulling in your main and turning your boat back upwind. Hopefully you can salvage some of your leeward. Of course, if you see an attacker approaching in the last twenty seconds, you might just choose to pull the trigger and get your boat up to speed, effectively closing the hole on them. Having someone on the boat watching for these situations and everyone knowing what the response tactics are and how to execute them will help you get a clean start in the front row, or at least salvage a decent start if you’ve set up early.

Pull the trigger & get clear

Well, the time has come to pull the trigger. Hopefully you’ve positioned yourself where you want to be on the line, with a nice hole to leeward to accelerate into, and no-one rolling over the top of you. Make sure your crew knows what to do in advance of your final acceleration, and use the same language each time, whether that’s “go go go” or “trim in and go” or “Wienerschnitzel!”. If it is hiking weather, make sure everyone gives their maximum hiking energy right away to help you hold your lane. The longer you can stay in your lane, the more options you have, the more likely it is you can pop into the top pack on the first leg.

Whoever was in charge of calling distance from the line (and/or checking the starting flags) now needs to check whether either the individual or general recall flags went up at the start. If the individual recall flag is flying (whether or not a second gun fired—it is not uncommon for race committees to fly a recall flag but delay getting the second gun off), have one person on the boat be responsible for making the call for clear start or OCS. Decide in advance who owns this decision so you don’t spend the first forty-five seconds of the race “discussing” (read: arguing) over who should make the decision or whether you were over early while the boat is getting farther and farther from the line. One person makes the call, and everyone sticks with that decision. Hopefully if you are OCS you can get back below the line or around the ends to restart quickly, catch a couple of great shifts on the first leg, and still have a great race.

In conclusion: Use some or all or none of these twelve pre-start steps, but develop a routine that works for you and your team and apply it at the start of every racing day, before every race.