A_S_Y_2015_04_05

37

SAILING SKILLS

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

factors for success and external,
uncontrollable factors for failure.
For example, someone who attributes
a race win to ‘always knowing’ the wind
would shift 20º left on the second beat
believes success was because of his or
her strategical skill. Whereas, someone
who doesn’t make it to the start on time
because of light winds might blame
the Race Committee for conducting a
race in light winds rather than himself
for failing to leave the beach with extra
time given the light winds.
I’ll leave a thorough analysis of
Attribution to Wikipedia (http://goo.gl/
VJt1wy), but just to say it’s worthwhile
taking a step back from how you initially
accredit your results to check that you’re
correctly assigning blame or honour.

DATA AND OPINIONS

Sometimes it can be difficult to

accurately attribute outcomes because

of the vagueness of wind and waves.

So it’s good to have some sort of

objective data to help understand

why you won or lost.

It might be something as simple as

recording the time won or lost per leg

to see if your upwinds or downwinds

were worse. Another nice way is to

check your GPS track for information

on how well you tracked the shifts

relative to other boats.

In a crewed boat, it’s easy to chat

among the crew to get everyone’s

perspective. And in crewed or solo

boats, you can take the step of asking

MICHAEL BLACKBURN

your competitors why they think you

won or lost – they will probably cut to

the chase better than most as they were

right there at the ‘coal face’ with you.

WHAT’S NEXT?

In reality, a good result usually makes you

want to get back in the boat quicker. A bad

result can stimulate feelings of needing

redemption or causing reluctance.

It’s great if you’re motivated to do better

after a loss as it means you have a lot of

self-worth, believing you can do better

than that result.

However, if you feel reluctance to

put yourself on the line again in a

competitive situation then you might

need to do some soul searching to

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