Forget about the logistics of getting the boat to the regatta or about the hotel rooms.  This is a simple outline for what I do to prepare for almost every regatta. 

1.  Know your Water (Know your Track)- Map it out.  Know where north is on the lake.  Get a good mental picture of the shoreline, the water color, the boat traffic and the surrounding areas.  It is my feeling that if you are comfortable with your surrounding - you can focus more on racing. 

2.  Weather - Know your weather and wind forecasts.  Not only for the clothing you will need, but for visualizing the races.  There are a ton of sights to find this out.  Fow6new.com is good for wind - sky vision plus - for SE Wis.  www.wunderground.com, www.windfinder.com are two more good sights.  Or my favorite www.lifestriders.com/weather.htm. 

3. Visualize - You have all heard it with athletes focusing and visaulizing their performance.  Well it works.  You know what the lake looks like, you know what the wind will be, so visualize a bunch of starts and races on the water.  Generally I start this about 4-7 days before the regatta starts.  A few minutes here and there to get my mind used to the scene and prepared for starts - up wind legs - narrow - wide - short or long.  Run through old regattas or races that were successful on that particular lake.  This really works.

Most of you know or heard of this, but I wonder how many of us actually do it.  I know if I am stressed at work or home - my sailing suffers.  Truly focus on the race - blockout everything else in your life beside the race at hand.  Trust your moves - if you think you should tack... TACK. 

Hope this helps.

Wagon... 

   

The Wagon

August Barkow
Past NCSSA President