What is high performance?

I don’t watch sports on TV. Sports like lawn bowls, sailing and cricket appear the perfect argument for why I don’t. But Barcelona is hosting a bunch of sailing regattas at the moment and I’m finding it both exciting and educational.

I like to sail. Big boats (kellers) and little boats (like Lasers). It helps to know how challenging something is to appreciate watching others do it. The America’s Cup racing in Barcelona is like that and they’re in a class of their own. These AC75s are foiling seven ton yachts, so they’re fast. I can probably peak at just under 40 kph/25 mph in my Laser but the AC75’s are racing at over 100 kph/60 mph.

This was the case for the most recent race I saw, the 4th in the Louis Vuitton finals between the British and the Itailians. The race was delayed multiple times because the wind was too strong and when they did start it was still at the peak of the boats wind limit. They were pushing the bounds of yachting and human performance. Not only was this fun to watch but an incident that happened before the race even started really reminded me how we can all deal with situations that seem extreme and barely controllable.

In this sort of match racing the boats are given two minutes to jostle for position and attempt to get the best possible position on the starting line. Constantly moving at around 80 kph, it’s a bit like a game of cat and mouse. Each one coming close to the other to push them off balance or draw a penalty. As you can imagine, the teams are highly focused. A moment came when the British had the upper hand and were pushing the Italians towards the out of bounds, when the Intalians turned a little unexpectedly and got extremely close to the British boat. With microphones on all the sailors I clearly heard the British shout out “protest, protest, big protest” (a cry to the umpires), then “Jesus Christ!” and then multiple people shouting, drowning out each other. At about the same time I heard a single voice, in an Australian accent, the skipper of the Italian crew calmly say, “turning right now boys”. The umpires indicated no penalty.

For the first half of the race and I suspect for the whole race, the British sounded annoyed. Two more moments like the pre-start happened with the same result, frustrated voices and no penalty. The Itailians went on to win the race by 4 seconds.

My lesson in seeing this moment in action was that no matter how stressful, uncontrollable or frustrating a situation may seem, lingering on it does not help you maintain your focus as you continue to race through life. The British made a few mistakes during the race and I each time heard them hark back to unfair umpire calls, their minds clearly not completely in the game. The Italians were not only faultless but in the post-race interview, one of the skippers mentioned how he appreciated how calm they were, especially under these extreme conditions.

When life seems to be going crazy around us, when we feel like we're pushing our limits and when we have little control, do ourselves a favor and don’t over exert our minds with thoughts that do nothing to help us in the moment.

Enjoy,

Tim.