Goal Setting

Dave Hughes, winning crew in the 2015 edition of the 470 Europeans, talks about getting your priorities right and how to identify blind alleys before you drive down them and waste valuable training time...

"I used to be small, was good at lake sailing, good in light winds. So when those conditions came along I used to train for six or seven hours because, man, it felt great beating everyone else! But then it was 30 knots, big waves, and the time when you should be really enjoying your sailing, I used to get my arse kicked. I'd only spend a third of my time practising in those conditions. And it didn't take me long to realise that the reason why I wasn't good across the board was because the stuff I'm good at, that's all I practised at..." So what did Paul Goodison do next?

Before you get too far down the track with a new sailing partner, make sure you have the same goals and aspirations, warns Jon Emmett. Do otherwise, and you're storing up trouble for the future....

Ask a professional sailor what his most precious resource is, and most will say it's 'Time'. Surely it's Wind or Water, isn't it? Well, that bit we can't control, but how we use our time we certainly can control. Here is some background to how and why Rob Greenhalgh structured his Tour Voile campaign, getting his Oman Sail Farr 30 sailing team up to speed in a matter of weeks during the spring of 2010....

When you set yourself goals for the upcoming sailing season, make sure they fulfil all the criteria of SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic & Tangible. Learning this stuff is much cheaper than buying a new set of sails, but don't underestimate the power of goal-setting just because it's free...