Better leeward mark roundings.

Success at sailboat racing is doing many seemingly very small things just a little better than your competition. It’s a game of literal feet and inches where gaining a few inches can mean the difference between passing boats and controlling your own destiny and being controlled by others and stuck towards the back of fleet. One place where inches are available to be gained is at the leeward mark. Hopefully this post can help you approach your leeward roundings with some new ideas in mind and help you improve your finishes.

I sail in San Diego a lot in an area called the Coronado Roads (site of the 2026 Etchells Worlds). There are often times later in the day where the right side of course is quite favored and the further right one can get the better the pressure and angle are. In this condition, any steps taken to the left are distance lost either from taking two or more extra tacks or the distance lost by having the competitors who end up right gain more pressure and right shift of the wind.

 Gaining or losing in situations like this where heading one direction is clearly desired is determined by how well you handle the few seconds leading into and right after the leeward mark. To simplify, our discussion we are going to assume that there is only one leeward mark or the gates are square to the wind direction. With that in place and all other factors neutralized (dirty air from kites, etc), we are going to try and make a left turn facing downwind and head off to the advantaged right (facing upwind) side of the course. Our goal is to keep sailing on port tack towards the advantaged right side for as long as possible. In this, scenario, we will be gaining on any boats to our left.

Unless we are winning the race, we will have boats ahead of us to deal with. How adversely they end up affecting us is determined by our leeward mark rounding. Our ultimate goal is to exit the mark on a line above the boat in front of us. This will allow us the minimize the influence of their bad air and continue to the right. If the boat ahead of us does a poor execution of the rounding, chances are she will be affected by the boat ahead of her, and be forced to tack off fairly soon after the mark. This frees us to keep going the way we want. As I said above it’s the little things that count.

Many of these Snipes show good form rounding one get to head left upwind. Pay attention to trimming the main before the jib to help the bow up. Video by Mark Albertazzi.

Keep these ideas in mind when setting up for your rounding:

Enter with maximum speed

            In the absence of boats inside you, try and come into the mark on a hot or relatively tight angle especially in light air. Speed and maneuverability are your friend here. Avoid having to do “button hook” turns when you can. Make your turn around the mark through the smallest number of degrees as possible 

Be cleaned up and ready to sail upwind before you round

            There is a big temptation with keep the pushing right to the very end of leg at the expense of getting ready to sail upwind. The risks of doing this are often not worth it as many times you will find yourself not ready race upwind right after the mark.

Take the spinnaker down early enough that it is fully put away and helm and crew are focused on sailing well when rounding the mark. Last minute fumbling to put the spinnaker away is distracting and slow and prevents you from focusing on what’s important for optimal speed and height at the moment.

Trim the main before the headsail

To help the bow of the boat turn into the wind faster start the main trim early and have the trim of the jib lag that of the main. This will create some momentum to get the bow swung up above the boat in front.

Exit on a line slightly above the boat in front of you

            Focus on making a “wide and tight’ rounding. If you have good speed (see above) coming in you can use that momentum to coast slightly above closed hauled as you round the mark. This will put you above the line of the boat in front of you, minimizing their bad air on your sails and allow you to continue straight. More often than not if the boat in front has not done quite as good a rounding, they will be forced to tack away and now you have really clear air headed the right direction. Pro tip: Always trim the main in faster than the jib or genoa. This will help the bow start coming up quickly and add more helm during the turn.

Both boats are doing a “wide and tight” rounding however purple ends up to windward of green by sailing above close hauled briefly to end on a line above green. With good sailing she will be able to go straight for some time.

While the leeward mark rounding can seem fairly straightforward, how you execute it has big implications. Done well you are closer to making your own decisions, done poorly you will be at the mercy of others or at a minimum doing some extra and costly tacks.