A lovely shade of lipstick

and Graeme- yep, no gelcoat colour will stop the 'coin-flick on continuing' that is the first encounter with aggressive racing for any newbie to the sport- regardless of gender or age. I've seen potentially very good sailors who've been put off of racing simply by the shouting and boat bumping at their first ever start line.  One guy, who'd done brilliantly on the RYA courses came back ashore and simply said, 'what a load of b**locks'.  We never saw him at the club again.

It's water off a duck's back to me, but I can empathise with intimidating nature of it, my only comparable experience is vying for ski lifts as a newbie boarder in a French resort- firstly you're dealing with having a 'lesser means of travel' (ski snob) and secondly you're dealing with a streak nationalistic ownership where old Frenchmen in onesies are simply too arrogant to accept that snowboarding and tourism are both essential components to maintaining the viability of a ski resort these days.  

At our club we've got a Saturday 'race training' session and also a Wednesday afternoon Solo session- it's informal and lighthearted, big emphasis on newbies and common sense rather than legalese and the 'overly assertive' sailing that we're probably all guilty of to a varying degree.  I'm hoping to take part every now and again too, should be a bit of a laugh and help to keep everything in context.  But it's essentially there as a transition pathway to the club race programme on Sundays and Wednesday evenings- a softened attitude in the Solo and Laser also help with a big heap of 'more the merrier'.  Despite what we might blather on about here, if a guy shows up with a Rooster sail or another slight infraction to some rulebook somewhere, it doesn't even get discussed, nevermind debated as to whether he should or shouldn't be allowed to sail.  Quite refreshing really, and I trust a good route for a club like ours to follow.