Race start strategy

[Bean]

Reading the recent Olukai 2016 post made me think about my strategy for our local race this Sunday.  There will likely be about 120 starting together from the beach with the first turn bouy only 100 yds away; there will be a big bottle neck.

As a mid-pack finisher, at best, but with decent starting/sprinting ability, do I go balls to the walls to the first bouy or hang back and let the stronger finishers have a better shot? 

What a wuss!  I just answered my own question... thanks for listening

 

[Southbay]

In my experience, flat water races are won and lost on the start.  Balls to the wall...

[yugi]

Did you see Tituan Puyo's start at the Carolina Cup. Not your classic best race strategy...
   http://www.totalsup.com/titouan-puyo-carolina-cup-2016-start/

I used to do triathlons. I'd always start on the side and take an outside line to that first bouy. One year I felt all trained up and started in the middle thinking i could pull ahead. Yeah right! I had 500 swimmers swimming on top of me and almost drowned.

I got a nice start at a local SUP race and was 4th at the fist bouy. I had just about finished rounding when I got slamed by the guy behind and went down. After everyone had paddled over me I was just about last.

I would take an outside line and stay away from the carnage at that fist bouy. You go down in that mess and you end up DFL.

[yugi]

But, yeah, go balls to the wall on that outside line

[PonoBill]

Go as hard as you can, and if you fall at the buoy, fall onto the board and stay on it. The big hairballs involve leashes. I was in second place overall in the surfboard class at a BOP years ago, catching the middle of the 12'6" raceboard pack when a woman on a 14 who had started at least 10 minutes ahead of me rammed me at a buoy. The fall would have been no big deal, but she and four other people fell on top of me. I had to take my leash off and swim under water to get back to my board. 

It's very hard to pass people in a flatwater SUP race. You generally have no more than a 1mph advantage over them which is about 1.5 feet per second. that means it takes at least twenty seconds to get past anyone, more often it's a minute or two, and a lot can happen in that amount of time.  The faster drafting trains assemble in the first few minutes, and if you don't connect to one you'll be going slower and working harder than even the guy at the front of the train. People complain about being drafted, but  in a close draft the waterline is more or less the combination of the two boards. You can go faster with someone glued to your tail. But I digress.

Go hard, find someone a little faster than you to tuck in behind, and do whatever you have to do to get in their draft. Then it's easy money.

[TallDude]

Like Yugi said, (beat me to the turn:) ),
If you can't sprint with the pack then stay wide right or left depending on the direction of the buoy turn. If your in the middle and behind 15 or 20 people, the turbulence will steer you all over and slow you down even more. If the first compression turn, be it a buoy or jetty is a left turn, then start wide right and stay right till the turn. Don't ever start to the inside of the first turn. You will get squeezed to a bad place and have a hard time merging.

  If it's a 180 deg turn, merge just before the turn . Then move away from the train if it's 2 or 3 people wide or more. Don't worry about any drafting rules, just keep your head down and go. You can move outside the train once you get rolling, so you're not drafting someone you shouldn't.

 If the first turn is just a 90 deg turn, then just make a wide turn and keep your speed up. I've made half pivot buoy turns where everyone else is keeping their respective positions after the turn. At other times I've made a wide turn maintaining some speed. On the wide turns I was still able to maintain my pole position. One you slow down, almost stop and pivot, then accelerate. The other you take a longer line, but maintain some decent speed and you'll end up in about the same position. 

[Bean]

Great stuff all, thanks!

[FloridaWindSUP]

Go hard, find someone a little faster than you to tuck in behind, and do whatever you have to do to get in their draft. Then it's easy money.

^This. Also, I like Yugi's idea of starting at one or the other end of the line to get more clear water.

[zachhandler]

Pono is that true about being faster if someone is drafting? Has it ever been studied or anything? From my background in marathon canoe racing i know that two boats working together move faster drafting front to back than riding side wash, but i thought that was just because riding side wash forces both boats into making some correctional strokes to counter the push of the other boats wake.

[Area 10]

A friend of mine who is a successful racer once have me this advice about race strategy: "Start off as fast as you can possibly go. Speed up towards the middle of the race, and then finish fastest of all".

If it is only your balls you have to the wall, you aren't trying hard enough

[Kaihoe]

Like other have said get into the draft at all costs.... easier said than done.

The first thing to look at is where you want to start.
 - is any bias on the start line (is one end closer to the buoy)
 - who is around you, are you going to get a clean run into the water and not get tied up
 - who is around you 2, who do you think will start faster and whos trail are you going to aim for
 - who is around you 3, if its the guys on both side get out of there.. if you start between 2 faster starter you can get sucked into dead water (if its a beach start)

The first 10 meters are critical. Practice getting the board moving for the type of start. If its a beach start use you body weight to project the board forward as you hit it. And make sure you got your paddle sorted out and ready to take the first stroke

If you miss the draft don't panic.  If there are 2 or 3 faster guys in front of you there is usually an nice big bump about 1.5 board lengths back. Get on that and stay on it.

As you get the the first buoy plan how you are going to get round it.  Are the people just in front going to make it? or are they going to get hung up?  Are you going to the inside and aim to barge your way through? If not are you going to take the long way round and hope it's faster?

Once you get past the buoy SPRINT and catch another draft.... then repeat :0

[Off-Shore]

A friend of mine who is a successful racer once have me this advice about race strategy: "Start off as fast as you can possibly go. Speed up towards the middle of the race, and then finish fastest of all".

If it is only your balls you have to the wall, you aren't trying hard enough

Actually that strategy works if you are super fit... which I have been in the past... but no longer.. so... . I find now with my medium level of fitness this works better,

"Start off as fast as you can go for the first 200+ meters, then as quickly as possible get into a sustainable rhythm, keeping up with the person in front of you or in the train.. As soon as you see people slowing in front (due to waves, wind or whatever), dig deep and aim to pass them within the first 1.5km / 1 mile. Then go as fast as you need to to stay in the position you are in, conserving as much energy as possible but DON'T LET ANYONE PASS . When you see the finish line, go balls out.."

This strategy works for me as many people go way too fast out of the gate and tire around the 1km / 0.75mile mark, and that's when I find I can make up places. The other key is when you get to a a position you feel you can hold is to back off the gas and to conserve energy, even it is 1-2%. Psychologically this is a moral booster, and for me stops me pushing it too much and blowing up 2/3rds of the way through the race and losing heaps of places in the last 1/3rd..

Not letting people pass after you've settled down into a rhythm is key... For some reason this vid comes to mind

https://youtu.be/Bv_zm67B2d4

[TeachSB]

Zachhandler, Pono's right about being faster with someone following. It's probably most studied in cycling where it has been proven. Think about it like this, the drag is largely due to a difference in pressure at the front and back of your board. High pressure in front and low in back. If another craft is close behind you, then his bow slightly increases the pressure in the water behind you which decreases the net drag on you slightly. Obviously it benefits him even more, but you get a little help too.

[zachhandler]

Cool. Thanks Teach.

[PonoBill]

Pono is that true about being faster if someone is drafting? Has it ever been studied or anything? From my background in marathon canoe racing i know that two boats working together move faster drafting front to back than riding side wash, but i thought that was just because riding side wash forces both boats into making some correctional strokes to counter the push of the other boats wake.

Of course. It's been studied to death. the fastest position is probably the canoe drafting position, which is 1/4 to 1/3 up the side of the racer in front. But SUP racers currently yaw too much for that to work well, and you'd probably get a lot of paddle banging. The person in the drafting position pushes a bow wave that can interfere constructively with the wave coming off the stern of the board ahead, lifting the tail and transferring some energy forward. In essence they are making one long hull out of two. Of course reality is never as clean as theory, so there's a lot of bouncing around and variations in drag that often makes the person in front feel like they are being held back. they aren't usually, what they feel is the benefit of the board behind going away when the waves get disconnected--in other words they were going faster for the same amount of energy because the drafting was working well, now they aren't, so it feels like drag. When I model that out, the person in the back is losing at the same time, so they generally push hard to break the draft and pass. They'd be better off to be patient and work at getting synched, but they're races. They don't have much patience.