When examining your sailing ability to find out your strengths and areas of weakness you enable yourself to hone in on the aspects of sailing that cap your performance and ability of your vessel. We have compiled 5 tips that can apply to all boat owners to help you get the most out of your boat, and yourself. From buying new gear to performance analysis, here are our top tips to help you improve sailing.

1.    Practice boat handling
Spend time practicing your weaker manoeuvres every morning you take the boat out. If you consistently attempt the same manoeuvre, you will find that before you know it, you’re significantly better. We have experienced and heard of great things when people make the effort to use such sports cameras as GoPro and Garmin action cameras to video themselves giving the ability to watch and analyse after.

2.    Understand all the settings your boat can change to
Knowing the most effective and efficient settings for all conditions is incredibly important when it comes to understanding your boat and how to get the most out of it. You should ensure that all controls and key elements are sufficiently marked that will enable you to quickly get your head around the handling and how quickly you can make changes to your vessel.

3.    Nail on mark rounding’s
Even the most experienced sailors can give away valuable time at mark rounding’s, with the biggest makes coming when sailors fail to follow the basic rule of ‘wide in, narrow out’ which allows other boats inside. Planning ahead and practicing all sorts of mark rounding situations in other conditions will be beneficial to your development.

4.    Perfect your starts
Very few have the ability to absolutely nail the start every time. Whatever the condition, getting your boat into clean air first gives a valuable early advantage, thus improving your judgement of time and distance plays a key role. If often sailing competitively, it should be standard to have such instruments and software that enables you to ping the exact location of each end of the line.

5.    Weight distribution
Controlling the weight distribution within your boat can prove to be the difference between success and failure. Such movements as roll tack can prove important. Never allow yourself into thinking your boat is sufficiently heavy, as even at 50ft level crews will roll tack in light air.

For more sailing tips and advice, we recommend you go to Yacht Charter, who are able to provide you with a large selection of yachts on a rental basis.