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15. Psychology by Paul Elvstrom

You must take great pains to keep clear and calm during racing. Psychological upsets can cause you great trouble and may make you do stupid things which you know you ought not to have done.

If you are racing against another competitor whom you believe to be better than yourself, then you must try to force yourself not to think of this. If he is sailing just a little bit faster you must say to yourself. "Ah well! This is just happening at this moment; shortly it will be my turn to go faster." You should concentrate on this. It is quite clear, however, that if he is sailing twice as fast then there is nothing much that you can do. Even if you have heard that this helmsman sails very fast and has won a great many races, you must still never think about it. You must concentrate only on the race which you are in, and you must always think what is the right thing to do and not consider that the other competitor might eventually beat you. I have too often had an easy victory when an opponent has allowed me to pass through an inferiority complex and without giving me a battle.

When you enter for a points series it is very important to show your worth during the previous practice races. When you are entering for an important series of races you ought to arrive two days in advance, sail round the course, tune up your boat and mast so that everything is ready for the start. Whilst you are practising and if you are sailing in company with some of the other top class competitors, you must try to sail as fast as you possibly can. This will look impressive to the others and they may finally get a complex about you.

My cleverest and most dangerous opponent, Andre Nelis, and I trained together for the Olympics in Melbourne, and I did everything I could to pass him all the time, and I was able to do this quite easily. He was so shaken by this that one day when we were at the Stadium he came and spoke to me saying. "Paul, I think that you will win your third Gold Medal." As soon as he said that I realised that he had got an inferiority complex about me and I said to myself, "Now I know I can win." I am sure that when a man has an inferiority complex his sailing will immediately suffer. There is another very important psychological fact in hard racing. You must keep up your spirits and I always say to myself when I am getting to the end of a very long beat and am very sore in the legs through hanging out. "The others are just as sore as I am and the sooner I reach the mark the shorter time I will have to hang out. I must hold out for as long as I possibly can." If you are behind in the fleet and are very tired you must think that the others are also tired and say to yourself, "Hold on! Hold on! There is a chance that the others will give up, if they see that I am still holding out."

If your boat is travelling well you must never give up, however much bad luck you may have during the race. If you are unlucky at the start you must say to yourself, "I must still do absolutely the right thing, and go the way that I know is fastest." You must under no circumstances get flustered or take a chance, or make a hundred short tacks in order to try to gain a small amount - never do the opposite of what the leading boats are doing in the hope that you might pick up a little distance. If you are sure the leading boats are going the right way, and by this I am particularly thinking of beating to windward, then all you have to do is to follow them.

Should there come a moment when the leading boats take a wrong course, then you should go in the direction which you know to be right. By this means in a long race you may be able to get closer and closer to the leading boats and eventually have a chance to pass them.

It is very important to train yourself to recognise the difference between good and bad luck, and also skill and good fortune. If competitors in front of you have been lucky, for instance, with favourable windshifts, you must be very careful not to allow this to influence you in future races. On the other hand, if this happened to you, you must tell yourself that you won by good fortune and do not start the second race saying to yourself, "I won the previous race and therefore I ought to win this one." Instead, say to yourself, "The last race was a washout. I won by luck. Now I must concentrate 100% on the new race in order to prove to myself that I am faster than the others."
When going to windward you often see another competitor going off on his own hoping that he can pick up a lucky windshift in order to take the lead - this is pure chance-racing. In 99.9 % of cases he will lose.

On the ran it often happens that the bad sailors keep clear of the better sailors, in order not to interfere with them. To the bad sailors I would say they should never do such a thing. You should always do everything you possibly can, and this is the only way to improve.

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