Last weekend was the first of a 5 weekends course on yacht racing that I’m teaching for Orza Scuola Vela on their Archambault 40. The idea is to bring sailors which are almost entirely new to regattas, up to speed with each other and ready to race in the winter series in La Spezia. The course had its first edition last year, and it had been both good and bad for a variety of reasons. As a starter, we were the slowest boat in the ORC-A category, giving us basically no chance to have real duels with other boats. While the boat is light and fast, it did not have…