{"id":160305,"date":"2025-10-14T06:11:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T05:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=160305"},"modified":"2025-10-21T10:06:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:06:02","slug":"5-expert-tips-how-to-run-a-succesful-offshore-campaign-on-a-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/expert-sailing-techniques\/5-expert-tips-how-to-run-a-succesful-offshore-campaign-on-a-budget-160305","title":{"rendered":"5 Expert Tips: How to run a succesful offshore campaign on a budget"},"content":"You learn more from your mistakes than from your successes. But when you\u2019ve had a bad result, how do you get past the negative emotion and start turning that into a positive to take forward into your next race?\r\n\r\nTerry Hutchinson<\/a> has been grappling with this challenge for more than four decades. He says he\u2019s still learning. Even for someone of Terry\u2019s deep experience at the top of the sport, every day brings up new scenarios and new lessons, sometimes painful but always useful if processed in the right way.\r\n\r\nBut how to learn those lessons and improve teamwork without resorting to finger pointing and ending up in the blame game? It\u2019s a tough job but it\u2019s vital to the overall mission, not to mention making sure everybody is enjoying the process.\r\n\r\n\u201cGood communication creates clarity,\u201d says Terry. \u201cHow do we communicate so that we keep our focus on the details and the process of racing well? The goal must be clear decision making without emotion. When you can make a decision without any emotion, you tend to make a higher percentage decision.\u201d\r\n\r\nEasier said than done in the heat of battle, which is why you need to read and absorb Terry\u2019s best five tips for rallying the team after a bad outing on the race course.\r\n

Own your mistakes<\/h2>\r\nWhen training recently on the TP52<\/a> we had a boat handling mistake which ended up with the spinnaker going underneath the bow \u2013 the worst possible thing that can happen.\r\n\r\nIt wasn\u2019t an error on the bow, it was a steering error, and I pointed this out to the helmsman, and he got it. It\u2019s not about attacking anybody, it\u2019s simply that the only way we learn from these situations is by acknowledging them and working out what we\u2019d do differently next time.\r\n\r\nArticle continues below...\r\n\r\n[collection]\r\n\r\nWhenever any of us makes a mistake, we\u2019d better be the first to acknowledge it, because without that how can you build the credibility to call anybody else out?\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re finding it difficult to get someone to own their mistake then I\u2019ll bring the ownership back on myself, because nine times out of 10 it\u2019s down to a communication error. So you get them to talk through what they were thinking. You don\u2019t need them to say, \u201cHey, I screwed that up.\u201d You just need to ask how they can be supported in those situations to eliminate that happening again.\r\n

Do your own job<\/h2>\r\nWhen the majority of the crew are amateur sailors just doing it on the weekends, one of the things we\u2019d instil is, \u2018Know your job. Do your job 100% perfectly first\u2019.\r\n\r\nAnd when you develop the consistency to do that, then learn the job of the person in front of you and behind you. Not to do their job, but to help support them when they need a hand. It\u2019s a great focus for every team member to work on their own skills before they\u2019re too critical of others.\r\n

Debrief later<\/h2>\r\nAt the end of every race and practice day you should be creating your \u2018capture list\u2019 to write down all the things that happened, both the good and the bad.\r\n\r\nYou want a daily debrief with the whole crew but generally it\u2019s better to do it the morning after, before you go out racing the next day. Sure, you can do it when you come ashore but people are tired, they need to eat, drink and rest. So aim for the morning after when moods are likely to be a bit less emotional.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_159454\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Photo: Rapt.Tv \/ Alamy[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSometimes things happen in the middle of a race day, showing up an error that needs sorting as soon as possible. If you have a boat handling area error and there\u2019s not a lot of time, get the relevant people together for two minutes, have the conversation and report back to the team before the start of the next race.\r\n\r\nThen there\u2019s the \u2018personal debrief\u2019, where you might have a serious conversation with yourself. People know that when I go to the back of the boat by myself, that\u2019s my time to reflect, get my head back into the game and be ready for the next race.\r\n

Prioritise big errors<\/h2>\r\nAlways aim for as much detail as possible on your capture list, but at the same time don\u2019t expect to tick off everything on the list. Use the capture list to identify what you did well, not just what you did poorly, and use the list to drive the narrative in your next debrief.\r\n\r\nWhen you have a long list of things to address, just pick a maximum of three things that had the biggest impact on your race result. Start with something that went well, then move to the meat in the middle \u2013 something you feel you can improve upon \u2013 and then finish up with something positive. You don\u2019t want to start the day out with a whipping; make sure you set out with a positive team mindset.\r\n

It's how you finish<\/h2>\r\nAt the recent Maxi European Championship we were getting great starts but just weren\u2019t getting anything to show for it. We knew that we\u2019d got to just keep close, not hit any panic buttons, make sure that when the opportunity arrives we were in a position to take advantage of it. Remember, it\u2019s not how you start but how you finish.\r\n\r\n
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\"\"<\/a>If you enjoyed this\u2026.<\/h2>\r\n
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Lawrence Herbert loves his offshore racing but he and the Corazon crew are campaigning their J\/133 on a tight budget. Necessity being the mother of invention, the 28-year-old and the rest of his 20-something crew have come up with some ingenious cost-saving approaches with minimal or zero compromise to performance. Herbert learned a lot about boat maintenance and reliability in the Caribbean where he worked for a few seasons on race boats including the J-Class yacht Lionheart. This hard-earned knowledge has equipped him well to run much of his own maintenance programme rather than paying others to do the work. Having been forced to retire from the 2023 Rolex Fastnet Race due to an injury to a crewmember not long after a stormy start in the Solent, for 2025 Herbert was determined to leave no stone unturned in his quest to complete his first Fastnet. \u201cI must admit there were one or two stones still unturned before the start, and one was not replacing the main halyard. When I heard a big bang, my heart sank as I immediately looked skywards,\u201d he recalls. \u201cFortunately it was the Cunningham pinging accidentally out of its cleat, so no harm done. But mostly we worked hard to make sure Corazon was ready for anything, even if it ended up mostly being a light to medium airs race this year.\u201d Here are five of Herbert\u2019s best tips for bulletproofing your boat on a budget. Plan your schedule Identify your next important race and build your preparation schedule back from there. In IRC you want to optimise your rating as much as possible for the route. You need to know when the rating deadline is for your race and make sure you get a rating slot as late as possible before that. For the Fastnet we had our sails re-measured two weeks before the start. Sails shrink over time, and just by re-measuring a headsail we got an improvement to Corazon\u2019s rating. Get all the big structural jobs out of the way during the winter when you\u2019re not likely to be sailing so much. Do your hull and keel inspection super early in the year. We did ours in January and had our rudder bearings replaced at the same time, which took longer than expected. Jobs like fairing the keel and the hull \u2013 all these things take time. If you\u2019re not sailing much for a few months, mouse all the control lines, sheets and halyards out and keep a bare deck while the boat isn\u2019t being used. Even in the winter you\u2019d be amazed how much UV damage can degrade lines. So take them home, put them through the washing machine with a small amount of fabric softener and vinegar (not soap!), and they\u2019ll come out almost as good as new. Winch maintenance Elsa Swetenham is our winch maintenance expert on Corazon. She serviced our winches at the start of the year and again just before the Fastnet. For the early-season winch maintenance you …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":447,"featured_media":160306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[975],"tags":[934,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/447"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160409,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160305\/revisions\/160409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160305"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=160305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}