Just as golfers work on their basic swing, you can improve your driving with practice. To steer faster, try some of the following tips:

Steer straight to steer fast. When most boats are close-hauled or reaching, they exhibit a tendency, called weather helm, to turn toward the wind. Weather helm relates to the balance of all the forces pushing and pulling on the boat, its sails, and its foils. Weather helm is like driving a car that has its front end out of alignment — the tiller or wheel "pulls" to one side. If you were to release the helm, the boat would turn up until it pointed directly into the wind — dead-center in the no-sail zone.

But here's something that surprises every new sailor and takes some practice to master — you have to make small steering changes to keep a sailboat going straight. As the wind changes in velocity or the boat changes its angle of heel, the amount of weather helm changes, forcing you to alter the rudder slightly to keep going straight. Although disconcerting at first, a little weather helm is natural, and a skilled helmsman develops a good feel of how to make the smallest steering corrections to keep the boat going straight through the changing conditions. Keeping your corrections small also minimizes the speed-robbing drag caused by turning the rudder.

Look around. Find a point (a tree or building) on the horizon where you're headed to make sure you're steering straight, and look at the sails to make sure they aren't luffing. Then look at the water ahead for approaching wind and waves. Also look around for boats (from all directions), then back at your point on the horizon, then up at the telltales, and so on. Spend 10 to 20 seconds looking at each station.

Buddy Melges, the "Wizard of Zenda, Wisconsin," is one of my all-time heroes in sailing. He's won the America's Cup (America 3 in 1992) and an Olympic Gold Medal (Soling class, 1972), but, more important, he is a great person who loves to share his knowledge. One time I asked him how he keeps a boat in the groove going upwind in a breeze. He said that he watches the horizon up ahead of the boat and keeps it at a constant angle to the bow and luff of the jib.

Practice "zen and the art of steering." When the boat is in the groove, the wind hits your face at a certain angle, the mainsheet tugs with a set force, the rudder pulls on your steering hand just so, and the boat heels a certain amount. Practice keeping the boat at that optimum heel angle, and you're sailing like a pro!

Find that groove. Pinching the boat (sailing too close to the wind) is obvious because the sails start to luff and lose power. As your boat slows down, it slips sideways to leeward more because the rudder and keel (or centerboard) are stalled. If you do stall out and get slow from pinching, ease the sails slightly, bear off 3 to 5 degrees wider of a closehauled course, and get the water flow going fast again. But you don't want to bear off too far (called footing) or you'll be sailing extra distance and away from your upwind destination. Between pinching and footing is the magical upwind groove, providing the best compromise of speed versus angle to the wind.

Trying to reach a point upwind is a balancing act. By pinching, you sail less distance to your destination, but you sail slower. Track B, the intermediate course, provides the best trade-off of boat speed versus distance sailed.

When it's windy, a keelboat's angle of heel can help find the groove. Each boat has a maximum heel angle for optimum performance. When it's windy, sailing too wide to the wind (footing) can cause the boat to heel too far, which can also cause a stall in your rudder (extreme weather helm) unless you let out your sails — but then you're sailing on a reach and not getting closer to that upwind destination. So ease the sails slightly and then head back up to get to that magic groove (and heel angle).

React to wind shifts. All these go-fast tips would be a lot easier if the wind never changed. But the wind is never perfectly steady for very long (see Chapter 8). On a sailboat, shifts are named for the effect they have on your sails and the angle your boat can sail. In a header, the wind shifts forward. If your sail starts to luff and you're still pointed in the same direction, then the wind has shifted so that it's coming from farther ahead (a header). In a lift, the wind shifts aft. In either case, you have to alter course (or retrim your sails) to get back in the groove.

Minimize heel. In Appendix C, we describe how a sailboat can sail toward the wind — because the water flowing over the centerboard (or keel) creates "lift" like a wing that's balanced by the forces of the wind on the sails. As the boat heels over, the centerboard or keel tilts with it, so less lift is generated. The sails also tilt, becoming less efficient. Bottom line: Too much heel is very slow, so try and limit it any way you can. One way is by moving your weight as far to windward as possible, a technique called hiking, as the next section describes.

Fine-tune your sailing skills on a dinghy. Because dinghies are much more responsive than keelboats, you develop your "feel" more quickly sailing a dinghy.