Newish spinnaker trimmers are repeatedly told “don’t let it collapse”—whether by the helmsman—or internally, by themselves. This rule of thumb is overly simplistic. It leads to excess loss aversion: chutes get over-trimmed. Pulled tight, they don’t get that characteristic curl that shows they are optimally flying. From there, faults cascade into failures: failure to head down, failure to speed up, failure to get that telltale hum in the rigging, failure to plane the boat, failure to keep up with competitors.
Such excess risk aversion is addressable by the Affordable Loss Principle (ALP). Entrepreneurs focus on what they are willing to lose, rather than their expected returns—as practiced by mature businesses.
ALP frees them from depending on predicting the future, like big concerns put so much energy into trying to do. Entrepreneurs don’t command the resources to know which way the fickle winds of the marketplace are blowing, so better to be nimble.
Likewise, our scrappy “spintrepreneur” can instead focus on lowering the cost of the kite collapsing.
This is done by getting better at recovery. While the trimmer’s fast reaction is necessary, it’s not always sufficient. An attentive fellow crew member on the winch may be needed to help yank the spinnaker to life. Having the helmsman head up can also refill the chute.
Such quick reaction—plus concerted action—brings cheaper failures.
Affordable occasional collapses only punctuate the considerable higher boat speeds, so the average speed is still higher. That speed powers the team to fail finitely, fail fast, fail frequently, and fail forward.
Those generate lessons: getting to know the chute (and the whole boat and crew and conditions….) That virtuous circle also allows greater range of tactical options: come down, or speed up, gybe, pass other boats…
So, the “don’t let it collapse” heuristic gets refined into “don’t let a collapse cost us (too much)”
Some things work best at the edge. Those include both entrepreneurs and spinnakers.
Learn more about ALP, among the The Five Principles of Effectuation