Video sailing lessons

I've been looking for some training material to get ready for the upcomins seasons heavy weather runs in the 470, when I found this "advanced level sailing lessons" video collection at the ExpertVillage site.
Check it out on this link: http://www.expertvillage.com/video-series/673_sailing-advanced.htm

All of the videos are starting with a little advertisement, which can be skipped by fast forwarding a bit. After watching the series, I feel they shouldn't call this series "advanced level", although compared to the "beginer level" other series, which deals with sail raising and learning the parts of the boat issues, it's much more practical even for those, who have actually sailed before.

The reason I've decided to still write about it and recommend it watching on one of the long pre-season evenings, is that it contains 2-3 videos, which can be a good memory-waker to think over all the tiny sail and boat adjusting elements, which are key to fast and competitive sailing, like usage of the boom-vang, the rig tuning, or the traveller. They even talk a minute about line types and their different stretching qualities. Don't expect to learn the olympic quota winning trick from the videos, but an interesting evening watching for people interested in getting the most out of your boat.

Trapeze techniques

I've been looking for a comparison site to read something about the differences between differing trapeze harness types, and ran into this handy trapeze techniques "tutorial".

It's written on the "UK Dinghy Racing" website, and tell some hints and tips how to stand on the trapeze, how to handle gusts and waves, and basically how to make the most out of that neat little wire hanging besides your mast.

The basics are simple (we've figured it out on our own, as had noone to show and couldn't find it then): "trapezing stance- feet as close together as the conditions will allow, balls of feet on gunwale, front foot angled forward to resist forward pull of the trapeze and forward rotation of body if hull is suddenly slowed by a bad wave, hands lying on beer belly holding jib sheet tight- this will steady you in waves."

Oh, yeah, at the end the best site I found today to compare different harness designs was this. Does anyone knows a good site, describing the differences between them (radial, lumbar, nappy style,...)? I keep looking for something and will post as soon as I find it!

Hmmm.... I've found a cool Laser Vago video on YouTube the other day. Easy to handle (because of the assymetric spinakker compared to the conventional symetrical one) and still lots of fun.



Oh yeah, and you can do it even with friend and even alone!