Cover When Winning, Split When Losing
Ahead in your duel: mirror every tack and stay between them and the wind. Behind: refuse the mirror and split.
Upwind team racing decomposes into duels, and each duel has one rule. If you're ahead, you own the controlling position: stay between your opponent and the wind, and answer every tack with a tack so no shift or puff can reach them before it reaches you. If you're behind, your job is to break that geometry — split to the opposite side of the beat and force a decision: follow you (and give up their safe cover into a boat-on-boat race where you might find leverage), or let you go (and hand you the whole left or right side if the wind obliges). Watch the two duels: the right-hand pair stays locked together; on the left, one early tack buys B2 a private side of the racetrack.
Opens the animation on the boat-length grid — run it well, then brief it from the same picture. Free, no account needed.
What to drill
- Cover means BETWEEN — between them and the wind, not merely ahead. Check your shadow actually points at them.
- Tack a beat after the opponent, not instantly: cross their line of advance, don't tack into lee-bow range.
- Splitting, go hard: half-splits get loosely covered for free. Commit to the corner you believe in.
- Pairs drill: sail 2v2 duels and call 'cover' or 'split' aloud at every tack until the decision is reflex.