Windward/leeward right of way

Originally posted by Do'm My understanding regarding windward/leeward courses were that it came from the vast growth in fleet size of boats with aysmmetric spinnakers.

Not really. Most symmetric keelboat classes have been doing predominantly W/L regattas for a couple of decades now.

I've been relearning the long-lost art of reaching in the last couple of years, having joined a class that still does triangles and I quite enjoy it. It is certainly however more of a test of boat-handling than of tactics.

Originally posted by Skiffybob I used to really like the olympc courses because you get a bit of everything, and there's different skills used in squeaking a boat up on the kite to make the wing mark, and if it was windy the judgement of how high and how fa to go on 2 sails before hoisting.   It also self-restricted the size and shape of kite used, as it needed to be small enough to allow you to make the wing mark, yet big and powerful enough to help you go deep on the runs.  In the cherubs this resulted in 3/4 hoist kite that had big "foldable" shoulders on single spreader rigs, which were really good.  It also meant that the hull shapes had to be more "all-rounders" rather than thin, flat, ironing boards.   Bring them back is what I say.  We did olympic courses at Weymouth regatta in 2009 and is was brilliant fun.

Actually, the 14's never stopped racing sausage-triangle (apart from special cases like the last worlds where there were practical constraints due to the location), for very much those reasons - there's a real skill in flying a big kite tight on a reach, it makes sure the kite designs stay "general purpose" for normal club racing, and up and down the same windward/leeward 6 times get boring anyway. Until recently it was actually a class rule that major events included reaching legs - that came out of the rules per se as ISAF wanted them limited to equipment-related matters only, but to have reaches is still formal class policy

Not sure where the windward/leeward fad came from - think it was originally one of those attempts to make sailing a media sport via short-course racing, and windward/leeward was part of that?

And to the original topic - changing the rules isn't going to happen and isn't needed, and of course fast assymetrics have to observe the rules like anyone else. But collisions are in no-one's interest, and it's just common sense to avoid them. It's like those trucks with signs saying "if you can't see my mirrors I can't see you" - a good general rule for anyone going upwind is that if you haven't seen the heads of the crew of a boat coming downwind (especially one with a big kite, but could be anything), assume they haven't seen you and shout early! (which was Dad's handy tip for his daughter doing her first Bloody Mary in her Topper recently!)

Originally posted by RS400atC If going as fast as possible was that important, we'd all be sailing boards.

I'm always quietly amused by all the people who reckon that the future of sailing is to sail the fastest possible boats on their slowest points of sailing... I'd quite fancy doing Bob's fetch/blast once in a blue moon... You need some serious skill to overtake in that, not just getting lucky with a windshift... How about doing it with staggered starts, 3 laps each, and the best single lap time wins? That would be a real test of who can sail fast.

Triangle-sausage is what I prefer for most symetric racing, a gybe mark does add some focus to the reaches!
I find w-l often a bit dull in keelboats, personally.
But if it's not possible to set a decent triangle with two kite legs, due to fixed marks or shifting wind, then maybe w-l  is less likely to be a procession.