The most useful exercise for dinghy sailors is chin-ups. About the only time you need strength while dinghy sailing is after a capsize, pulling yourself back into the boat, pulling someone else back into the boat, climbing to the up side gunwhale, either on the inside or the outside. And occasionally pulling someone out of the water and onto the dock. (All the other skills needed for dinghy sailing have to do with balance, reaction time, flexibility, and technical skills for things like sail trim.)

               Initially, chin-ups may be hard, or even impossible. When I started I could barely do three, and not from fully extended to chin above the bar. Eventually I worked my way up to about 20, though not with very good form. When you start, at first your muscles don’t get bigger – they just rearrange themselves internally to better perform the work demanded of them. If you keep it up, and keep your protein intake adequate, they will get bigger too.

               When you do them, keep your palms facing away from you and your hands at about shoulder width (the woman in the picture has her hands just a little too far apart). After all, this is the configuration you’ll employ hauling yourself in over the transom, and not far off from when you’re pulling someone in by the shoulder straps of their PFD. Exercise every other day, since muscle tissue takes about 48 hours to rebuild after the stress of the exercise. Just pull yourself up as far as possible, even if it’s only an inch. No matter how many you can do, keep going until you’ve exhausted yourself to the point that you can barely raise yourself at all. Exercising your biceps to exhaustion strengthens them fastest.

               About the only other physical capabilities you need are flexibility and, occasionally, the ability to work to exhaustion. For flexibility, squatting is the most common stress you’ll put on your joints. Bending, twisting, etc. are obviously moves to cultivate. Endurance might come up if you have to fight a capsize in 20+ knot wind and three-foot waves, and if this interests you, look into HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). But your ability to pull yourself in and up the boat is much more often going to be put to the test.

               When you can post-capsize recovery pull yourself over the transom of the boat as the skipper thoughtlessly sails it away, think about a Senior test, if you’re not already there.

How to Survive 30 knots: class outline (this class was given in CSC Advanced Dinghy several times). The student executes the following nine steps, which are those recommended under the conditions in the title. Under mild conditions, please try to imagine waves over three feet and rain in the face like shotgun pellets.

1. Sail to upwind Junior line.
2. Capsize
3. Deploy anchor
4. Lower mainsail
5. Right boat
6. Furl mainsail
7. Raise anchor
8. Jibe jib only at least twice (for practice)
9. Sail back to dock

Notes:

1. Before launching in exciting conditions, it is wise to carry a radio and to notify the Day Leader they may be needed.
2. When deploying the anchor, the rode must go out the front of the boat (to keep the bow pointed into the wind) or this maneuver will not work.
3. Before the drill capsize, please get at least 90% of the way from the rocks to the upwind line. If you capsize too much before you get there, try sailing main only.
4. It is hard to point very high sailing jib only, and nearly impossible to tack, so to go upwind you need to jibe quickly so as not to lose much ground during the turn. Use this opportunity to practice pointing as high as possible and making quick jibes. Make sure centerboard is fully down, and do not oversheet as this would make it hard to point very high.
5. If you have an unconscious sailor, particularly one with a head injury, contact the Coast Guard immediately on channel 16.
6. The Coast Guard will only pick up sailors, not boats. (If you have to go, leave it anchored and maybe the Club can get it back.)
7. If you need help but can’t reach the Dayleader on 69 (might happen if you’re north of the Berkeley Pier), you might try contacting the Berkeley Marina harbormaster on 68 and asking her to pass a message to the DL.

Supplement: How to survive 40 knots

In an incident in the first half of 2017, on a Thursday race night most of the club’s best sailors were confronted with 40-knot winds. All boats capsized. Most were unable to right their boats even with mainsails down. Only two crews were able to survive with any grace.

Appropriate capsize recovery techniques vary by wind speed, and there are several methods available for righting the boat  in situations where the wind is high and you are unable to keep the boat from re-capsizing. However if you can recover without setting the anchor or having a crew member swim around to the bow to line the boat up into the wind, the recovery will be quicker and easier.

To recover on the first attempt (without re-capsizing) with the least effort in the broadest range of conditions, here are two very useful tips.

First, uncleat the gnav/vang (in addition to the mainsheet & jib), as this will reduce the effect of the wind on the sail when the boat comes back up.

Second, while up on the gunwhale, before stepping onto the centerboard, consider what effect the wind direction will have on the boat once it comes up, and plan the effect the arrangement of your and your crew's weight will have on the boat's balance at that point.

• If the mast is pointing away from the wind/hull is towards the wind, the crew will be on the downwind side when the boat comes up. Tell the crew to just hang on to the bungees under the gunwhale when the boat comes up, and then come around to the stern to get back in afterwards; when the boat comes up, the person on the centerboard tries their hardest to at least get half way over the gunwhale so as to keep the upwind side weighted down.
• If the mast is pointed towards the wind (a situation in which a double capsize is very common), the crew will be on the upwind side when the boat comes up. Have them hang onto the hiking straps as the boat comes up so their bodies are draped over the gunwhale. If they  weigh enough--taking the wind's power into account changes the meaning of 'enough'--the person on the centerboard can dry recover, particularly if he/she scrambles quickly across to the upwind side. If the crew is lighter than the person on the centerboard, the person on the centerboard should plan to go down into the water and get back into the boat from the stern (holding on to the boat at all times). 

Under almost all capsize conditions where you're not right by a lee shore or dock, the person on the gunwhale can take as long as they want to consider the situation and to discuss it with the rest of the crew.