Matt
Do any other dinghy classes have such guidelines?
I don't know of any. I know the A class and Tornado's don't have such guidelines.
While it's great that you get the requisite number of mark boats for NA's... the safety standards can be no less for a weekend regatta.
Don't your guidelines create a defacto safety standard that would be used to demonstrate that the local regatta safety is sub standard?
On your first question, I can't think of any OD classes offhand that are as attuned to race management and event coordination as are the Hobie Classes. A lot of classes have "Event Manuals" (the Tornado equivalent is Appendix C to their class rules). Whether they get down to the details of how many boats and what equipment they should be carrying like the HCA manual does - I don't know of any. (But then again, my knowledge is limited to the OD classes I've run - Melges 24, Ultimate 20, Thistles, Force 5, Tornados and a few others.)
On you second question, it's a pretty low standard. If you have a weather mark boat, a pin / gate boat and a relatively mobile committee boat, then you're set for up to 34 boats - which would accomodate the vast majority of weekend regattas these days.
Like I said - to a great extent it's up to the PRO to use his judgement on whether they feel they can handle the conditions with the resources they have at hand. If all your mark boats are tied up assisting boats in trouble, you're not running races anymore because you can't set/move marks.
