The Parent Guide
Is your child getting started sailing a sabot? Or preparing for competitive sabot racing?
Check out these guides for parents on what you can do to help your child succeed.
Sabot Parenting Advice
 Parents Guide to Beginner Sabot Racing - Ken Wild
Advice for the first years of Sabot Sailing - Doug Paine
Sabot Racing Advice
A Guide to Racing Basics - Mark Johnson, © 1/19/1995
Parents Guide to Beginner Sabot Racing
thoughts by Ken Wild
Having learned to sail a Sabot as a child, it was a new experience when I had children and revisited my Sabot experiences. I tried sailing their sabots and found out that racing one is not an easy task. In the process I gained some insights on the boat.
First of all parents should understand that a Sabot is not a boat as much as an activity and experience for a child. Lost parts, broken masts and occasional collision damage are part of the learning experience.
Juniors sail a lot and usually their Sabots need more maintenance or repair than they receive from busy parents. Many of the challenges that young sailors have when learning to race can be attributed to basic boat problems.
A fast, well tuned Sabot will almost sail itself! If you can sail reasonably well, sail your child’s Sabot on a regular basis to insure that everything works as it should. Alternatively have one of the “A” Skippers try the boat out- especially if you child is having difficulty with sailing/racing.
Most of the Sabots our kids sail are very old and require constant attention. Ten of the more common beginning sailor problems and the usual fixes follow:
- Child sits too far back in the boat– probably needs a longer tiller and or extension
- Does not pull in the main when going to weather in a breeze- mainsheet run through the ratchet block backwards, ratchet block turned off, no ratchet block, insufficient purchase or too small a mainsheet for small hands to hold.
- Always pinches going to weather and frequently ends up in irons- generally too much mast rake.
- Cannot seem to stay on the wind, ends up reaching- generally not enough mast rake.
- Child sails better on one tack than the other- check the leeboard alignment with the keelson strip on the bottom of the boat.
- Difficulty getting rudder on when beach launching- pintles bent or both same length (having bottom pintle a bit longer helps).
- Sail seems to have a hard leech in a breeze- mast too stiff for sail luff curve.
- Outhaul out too far, vang too loose etc- use limit knots in control lines so that sailors cannot release control lines beyond their optimal limits.
- Difficult trimming sail on various courses- no tell tails on sail.
- Boat swamps before sailor can bail it out- missing bailing bucket or bailer is too small to be effective.
Items to bring to regattas: duct tape, pliers, wrench, screw driver, extra leeboard handle, extra goose neck bolt, extra clothes, short wet suit, extra lunch and snacks. Leave binoculars home! That way all you can say when they come in is “did you have fun?” rather than something critical like, “why did you go left on the second beat in the third race- couldn’t you see the rest of the fleet going right?” Finally, have fun with your child.
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