Just a quick reminder that it is the Grafham Cat Open on 18 & 19 October. It is open to all sorts of Catamarans and the races will be sailed in the following Groups/Starts:

Course A
Fast Singlehanded Handicap (including F16, Shadow, A Class, etc)
Formula 18
Fast Handicap (including Hurricanes).
Spitfire

Course B
Dart 18 Inland Championships
Sprint 15 Inland Championships
Medium Handicap (including the Shearwaters and Hobie 16s this year)

The briefing is at 11am on Saturday and the first race is at 1200. No pre-entry is needed*. Just turn up and enter on the day. We hope to get some wind this year!

There will be 3 races on each of the Saturday and Sunday but the Sprint 15s will just do 2 races on the Sunday so that they will get an earlier and quicker prizegiving so the travellers can get away.

On the Saturday evening there will be a meal at 7pm in the upstairs bar after which we will be showing sailing videos on a big screen. 

We hope to see you there

Regards

Bob Carter

* but if you plan to camp you must book your camping spot. This is especially true for motor homes as we have a very limited number of spaces allowed.

For full details see the Notice of Race on the Grafham Website

Just found out that the Club Bar will be open from 18:00 on Friday.

Closing when it's no longer busy, but I am not sure what the definition of "busy" is.

I think Pat (The barman) will want to go to bed before that!!!!!!

See you there Oz; Will you be there Friday?

P.S.

There will also be a Veggie option

A Great event held with good spirit between all the classes, well done the cat community the end of season bash as usual lived up to all expectations.

Its especially nice to see the 5.9s havent lost their sense of humour either see Quote from the Y and Y Report below Nice one !!! -

"The talk in the pub that evening was that of the top 3 Hurricane’s beating the F18’s over the water in Race 3, even though they had a 3 minute head start"

Also thanks Webby im sure the batten tensions helps the set of the Tiger main when its inverted !!!!!!

Chaps,

I'm considering modifying the SI's for next yeat to move the line 50-100m UP the course to reduce the chaos at the leeward gate.  50m when light wind, 100m when howling. 

I know this will slightly cut down the options for the beginning of the beat, but I think we need the space down there!

Comments?  

Hey Simon,

An excellent idea, I had spoken to Hilary about this during the event and she has promised to take a look at the possibility of using the standard si's for the spitfires/tornados.

Which would make the Grafham open just like most class cat opens with the gate and start line swapped.

BTW: the 3min start sequence although unusual, certainly seemed to work interms of keeping the fleet seperated. ie: We didn't start with nearby downwind boats in the vicinity.

http://www.tornado.org/uploads/documents/Championship%20Course.pdf - http://www.tornado.org/uploads/documents/Championship%20Cour se.pdf

Regards JR

i think that moving the gate upwind would be a sensible thing to do. i was thinking of suggesting it myself!

I prefer courses where you have to go through the gate each lap it just means nobody cocks up their race through not peeling off to finish.

It was chaos at times, having to tack so soon for the upwind gate put you in the path of the boats blasting into the leeward marks 

We had a great time, maybe a bit less wind would have helped.

26 of us from Eastbourne travelled up, anyone beat that?

The hurricanes are known for there sense of humor,rather than there lap counting ability as we have seen in previous years at graftham.

as for the finish gate,  personally i would rather pass the leward mark to a finish line like we had a couple of years ago. should make life easier for the race team and give us the chance to go where we like up wind and down wind.

The problem with us finishing DOWN WIND is that the race team may not be able to see our sail numbers.  THIS IS THE REASON IT WAS DROPPED AFTER THE 2006 OPEN.

Would people be happy to have hull numbers to make the OOD's job easier (and probably pay a quid or more to fund them)?

We could then consider having the start line below the gate and then having the finish line the same as the start line and a down wind finish; this WOULD mean that people would need to check the CTB for a Shorten course.  We would have to think about having the flag at the CTB and not the windward mark as we might not have a spare boat to be a "Mark boat". 

We are willing to review options, but we need to think them thru and consider the impacts on Rescue and costs to competitors.

We will continue to use the 3 minute start sequence as I'd hate to have the first fleet coming down as the last fleet started.......

wouldnt mind paying an extra pound for bow numbers, as the entry fee was pretty reasonable anyway for six races. not sure how much it would help though as my bows were under water most of sunday anyhow

3 minute starts are the only way to go with that many fleets to get away

Oz, Your kite is small enough to be able to see the sail nos!!!

If the bows were under water all the timer, you need T foils....It just means you blow over sideways instead....

imo  dont go back to the old system its nearly right now!

bit further away for the gate as you say.

if it goes t-ts up on the comm boat at least you can finish everyone and sort it out later.

finishing downwind is much harder for the race team and confusing for the sailors.

I think the hurricanes need to go back to school and learn how to count again, they wouldn't be able to get near the likes of Hugh and Rob.

I'd say go for bow numbers and and the gate to windward of the line, and get the comitee boat to display the amount of laps for that race. It was chaos around the gate, and it caused the injury of Jess Findlay by a stealth (who ows Jess a opology).

Good event though. and there was some wind this year....

Hi Guys,

The successful running of an event of the complexity of the Grafham Cat Open (with so many classes and so many starts) is greatly helped by using average lap times and finishing all boats once the course shortening flag is flown. This means that different classes, and different ability sailors can do different number of laps and yet still get a result. It simplifies the race officers task (which is already pretty tough) and enables a quick turn around between races as you are not waiting for stragglers to finish.

The consequence of using average lap times means that all laps have to be the same and that all competitors must pass through the finish line each lap.

This being the case it is difficult to see how the Tornado course could be used.  Options to improve on what we used this year are such things as:

1) give more space between the 2 leeward marks (gate) and the finish line gate as has been suggested elsewhere on this chat thread.

2) Remove one of the leeward marks and keep it a simple port rounding.

3) Have 2 leeward marks, one to leeward of the other and no leeward gate. Send 2 fleets round 1 (to port) and the other 2 fleets round the other (also to port) as we did on course B. This just helps reduce the congestion at the leeward marks but limits the options available to the sailors.

Comments / preferences welcome.

Cheers

Bob

1 and 3 are options, but 2 would be a nightmare, far to many boats(of different speeds and angles) going round 1 mark.

i actually thought it worked really well this year the big problem was boats stopping as soon as they passed the finish line, leaving anyone left to finish to weave their way through through traffick that had allready finished racing. not alot the race team can do about this. which is why i would prefer to finish off the normal course.

I also found the gate/finish area to be too congested, and would favour putting the gate above the finish line, even if only by having the CTB below one of the gate marks to form a finish line. I'd be happy to pay a quid extra to fund bow numbers. 

A separate issue re the 3 minutes... as the first fleet to start, I found the three minutes to be rather short notice. All later fleets had 6 minutes or more warning. Have you tried simulating this for the first fleet by flying the AP flag and dropping it a minute (or 3) before the first class flag goes up, etc.

Simon, best bet is to keep an eye on the flags on the boat; then the finish line flag drops, a start is probable soon.  Another good plan is to stay to leeward of the line behind the CTB so you can hear the hooter. 

I'll add it to the "possibles" for next year.

Good point. Maybe we can get the finished boats to keep clear by covering it at the briefing.

Regards

Bob