Hi Pat

I completely forgot about the start fiasco.
It was truly ugly when every class was awarded a start... the sequence at Gunpowder took 35 minutes to complete one year..10 minute sequence plus 16 A, B and C plus 17's 18's and 20;s... (Open started on the 5 minute gun). Worse.. you would only have a handful of boats in most of these starts... Yes.. the C fleet would go one lap and then sit for half an hour.... Not fun.

It took forever (years) to get the starts down to three..
16's, + 17's and 18's. + open and 20's The HCA rules did not speed this process up if I remember... Lots of noise about wuf wuf wuf... Our three boats deserve a hobie class start... its a hobie regatta after all and that is what the rules say.

Many dinghy clubs on the bay will run regattas with just two classes.. It makes it easy to manage the water and the property. Yacht clubs who host large annual regattas have to be careful to keep the action moving. eg multiple courses or clever management. The last one we attended, Rock Hall set a winward leeward course and had you finish up wind above the A mark ... then Cruise back to the start line. Certainly spread the boats out (two cat classes and 3 or 4 monohull classes). (kind of hard to P when you are single handed and have to keep moving...)

Mark