Abandon for Wind Shifts

So all the votes so far are for "Don't ever abandon the race" then.

My thoughts -

Are you using permanent marks or marks laid specifically for the race?

Do you have the ability to move the marks without disrupting the fleet?

If you are using permanent marks then don't abandon.

If the marks are laid specifically for the race and you can move them without disrupting the fleet, do that and don't abandon the race.

If you are using marks specially laid, and they cannot be moved without disrupting the fleet then you have a difficult choice. 

However, abandonning is in my humble opinion a sop to those who believe that luck shouldn't be part of sailing - and these people will moan anyway.  But the more I practice the luckier I get, so personally I say race on!

 

Scariest race I ever did - sailing in the cat class in a dinghy regatta with about five other starts sailing different courses after us.  Last race, running out of time after a flat calm morning, big shift during our prestart and the wind got up from about F2 to about F5.  We could fetch the windward mark, had to beat to the spreader mark and then reach straight at the leeward mark.  Problem was the Lasers and things doing triangles - got really scary trying to work out where the gaps were going to be when we crossed through them!  Almost glad we pitchpoled and decided to retire!

i've sailed a lightwind race at bala before which i won due to my amazing wind shift spotting ability where we reached all the way round the course from the start, and the race officer didnt abandon it

Originally posted by redback The only other situation I've felt an abondonment was justified was when we realised another club was using the same navigation mark - but the other way round.  It's not much fun in a Laser to be head -on with a Tornado!

That has happened to me three times now when yacht racing in the Solent and it is very scary since it really isn't obvious who has rights and everything happens very fast. On two of those occassions it was fleets run by different race officers in the SAME EVENT. One time in Cowes Week in a brisk F5, 40 707s were attempting to round a leeward mark in the opposite direction as 80-odd XODs 

The Chichester Harbour clubs have an agreement to always use marks one way to avoid this problem, and I've never understood why the SCRA (Solent race coordination body) doesn't do the same.

The only time a race has been abandoned for a windshift that ive been in is when the 2 flights would converge majorly.