Only recently the sport of sailing acknowledges that mental training for a sports event is as important as physical or technical ones. In order to construct a mental approach that is suitable for the competition, it seems to be really significant the individualization of emotional states that can determinate , if activated, a positive or negative impact on performance . This work , that makes use of Individualized Zone of Optimal Functioning model, intends to study the relation between emotion and performance in the sport of sailing , trying to individuate the major emotional factors that favour the efficiency and to relate effect of a mental training program to the emotional states of the athlete and to the performance. The research has been developed with a group of twelve athletes that are members of federal youth teams of Laser class. Subjects were inserted by chance into two groups , a study one and an observation ones; the athletes that were members of the study group, unlike others, participated to a mental training program that was principally formed by focus group and session of autogenic training and imagery . At the same time, variations in emotional states of athletes were controlled by means of IZOF Questionnaire and data of performances in competition were noted down . Results show that at the end of the program the six athletes that partecipated to the mental training referred a variation of intensity in the emotional states that were felt in competition . Besides the athletes of the study group achieved better results in races than the observation group. That fortifies the consideration that the mental training is of vital importance for the maturation of the athletes with regard to the management of competition.

In the sport of sailing it’s objectively difficult to define peculiar characteristics so as to make a well-defined categorization. In fact, the few readable data, the lack of a chronometer and a score that must be assigned give a picture of the sailing that seems almost “intangible”. Actually that isn’t just what happens and, although expressions as “smelling the wind” or “the good inspiration” are still frequent, the concept of the sailing as sports discipline, especially on the Olympic level but also in youth classes, is becoming even more important. Thus the sailing observed and studied as the other sports in which it’s taken care of all details, from the athletic condition to the study of the rules, from the preciseness of a technical act to the attention that is focused on the mental condition of the athlete. Therefore also the sailing trusts more and more often in the support of Sport Sciences, especially for that concern the psychological aspect and the performance analysis. This work intends to acknowledge exactly the importance of the psychological aspect, particularly referred to a ship with a crew and, therefore, both to the helmsman and the bowman. The hypothesis is that the difference of role, personality and build can’t be annulled into a single entity called “crew”. The methodology that is adopted consists of making use of the IZOF model, proposed by Hanin. The results are interesting and show that the set of emotions that favour the performance are extremely individual and their intensity changes in function of the proximity of the starting moment. All that leads to the problem, that could be object of future works, of how two individualities that are well distinct but also in contact in the same ship a lot of hours a day, can reach, both and in the same time, the own optimal level of activation

In high level situational sports like sailing, where elements that can affect performance are many and really variable, motivation is a fundamental regulator factor. But when and how motivation can affect international high level sailors performance? That is the question that needs an answer. As initial study study using questionnaires and interviews permitted to identify and describe the motivational structure of these sailors. The group seems to be homogenous and the main characteristic lines are marled. Monitoring some motivational aspects related to self-efficacy amd theory of attribution of causality , during a race period, permitted us to measure the weight of motivation in performance and gave interesting indications on relations between self-efficacy, mood states and performance . There is a high correlation between the evolution of level of self-efficacy and the following performance (r=75).