Are windward leward courses really best?

Sorry about the previous post - I forgot you are talking keel boats and I was going on a bit about dinghies.  However there is a good Dragon fleet on the Medway.

And as for olly_love.  You weren't exactly trying to beat the other guys were you?  With 2 tacks and no gybes it must have been boring.

The trouble with reaches is that in most winds they are processional.  Even worse in a mixed fleet and you are in one of the faster boats since a boat like a Wayfarer will hold back a fast boat going through to leeward and a fast assymetric can't get over the top.  However the W/L course are sailing at its most abstract and can be boring.

Personally I like the racing we have on the Medway.  Its a kind of short passage racing with a bit of windward/leeward at the furthest extreme of our range.  Very frequently we have the sort of situation where you can't hold the kite quite high enough and you have to sail high and then hoist.  Similarly we get fetches which are fast and tricky in a skiff.

And if I can go on a bit more about the Medway.  We start where the river is only a few hundred metres wide and then we go down to where it is a kilometre or 2.  So we get a wind range of about one force and flat water and choppy water, we also have the tide to contend with as well as gusty places and relatively steady places.  So one race throws in a lot of variables.  Quite a challenge

At the Paignton regata last month we did a day of W/L and a day of racing out to sea and round a big rock.  Both were excellent - but it was doing both things that made it particularly good fun.

A week's regatta of W/L would be SOOO dull.

IMHO upwind / downwind may be the best test of seamanship - but reaching is where the fun is.  

Plus on a close reach to broad reach course my boat sails well below its 1030 handicap    whereas W/L I struggle to beat flying 15s.

2 points:

1.I went to Cork Week a few years ago to sail a Sigma 33 championship. It seemed a bit ridiculous to spend half a day checking that each boat had the required number of  plates, cups, saucers, cutlery... not to mention weighing the gas bottle - then spending the rest of the week sailing 2 W-Ls per day. No race in the Harbour, no beat through the Narrows against the tide, no coastal sailing. It seemed like a total negation of the whole concept of the cruiser-racer. I would have preferred at leat one race were the navigator was the most important person on board.

2. I was surprised to see the bulkhead on Dragon, to which on of the spinnaker sheet pulleys is mounted, "panting" on a close reach in a Force 2. Apparently the boats are now designed with only running legs in mind. I have heard rumours that some bulkheads have had to be repaired.

There is more to sailing bigger boats than the nautical equivalent of playing the "Grand Old Duke of York".

Gordon

A few years ago when I was involved with a sportsboat class association we surveyed owners preferences on this. Roughly speaking, half wanted nothing but W/L and the other half wanted a more varied diet. Personally, I'm in the latter camp, as I find doing exactly the same thing every time a little boring. That said, it is a fact that you don't get a lot of places changes on reaches.