Courses for Open Meetings

I am with you all the way on this. Interesting courses, and variety.Difficult to vote, though, as there is a place for all of the above.


Edited by Rupert - 03 Apr 13 at 12:17pm

and me. Some of my most enjoyable sails have been round the cans. As you say triangles, sausages etc become very boring.

In an ideal world I think the changes ought to be rung a bit, but there are also the practical problems.

I really dislike courses based round the local navigation marks or whatever, because that does give something of a premium in knowing where SE Winner (or whatever) is, especially in places where they move around!

The trouble is if you are laying marks then the more complex the course then the longer course changes take, and that's good racing time lost unless you expect the race team to be out there moving marks while the competitors are having their lunch. I remember doing an event where an astonishingly organised race team set a l/h course for one fleet and a r/h course for the other with gates and goodness knows what. It involved about a dozen marks... Like I say, a super feat of organisation to get those courses out at all, but a big windshift was a nightmare waiting for it all to be reset.

Personally I think quadrilaterals are a pretty good compromise, but I think race teams should attempt to ring the changes... Doesn't take that much longer to change the angle of one of the reaches than it does to just reset the run for where the wind is now - well, not if you have a good crew on the boat. If they are some of your most willing but least experienced volunteers maybe you're just happy to get the run square at all...

You'd have to be pretty damned good to go and trade blows with those banjo players and their fixed marks up on the medway.

And my brain bleeds every week looking at the course board with it 4S   7P 5S 3P etc I hate having to write stuff on masking tape and stick it on my dry suit sleeve for it to wash off at the first mark rounding.

So If it's a serious event then a triangle sausage gives everything, reaches, windward leeward and in any given location other than geographic influences which a good sailor would spot anyway, no advantage to locals.

I don't like windward leeward nor do I like box courses with attempted tight reach that inevitably becomes a fetch with no option but to queue one behind the other. And P courses suck, we used to run triangle sausage with a three bouy in out gybe at the corners which made for interesting corner roundings and calls for water.

I hate starboard hand courses like we had at the FOM nothing worse than laying the mark on Port not quite clear ahead for some bunch of Finn muppets to flip you round whilst they sail on to overstand the other side as well..About the only word they can enunciate in their brandy&babychammed stupor is StaaaarrrrBoooooored.

You need to do some of the unusual events like Birkett or Kielder Dam to Dam (coming up the first May bank holiday ) because you have to go round the corners of the lakes.

I also really enjoy topgraphical courses, even in unknown venues, because it is such a different set of challenges. Burnham on Crouch, Blithfield, Coniston - all full of variety

Edited by vscott - 03 Apr 13 at 4:51pm