Hi Rick -

Was really sorry to miss Tradewinds this year. This left coast thing has some drawbacks.

I worked on the race committee for the ISAF Youth Worlds Qualifier last weekend. It was the first time I'd ever worked on a trapezoid course - we had the Hobie 16s with spinnakers, the International 420s, and the Club 420s on our circle. The trapezoid worked very well, and we only had the Hobies and the Clubs meet up once at a gate in seven races. We used five total marks, two of which were gates. We had the primary committee boat anchored and four whalers running the marks. We were able to completely reconfigure the course for a big wind shift in eight minutes, we changed course several times, and I think we shortened at every mark for one fleet or another when the wind died or the time limit was close. It was a very busy three days for the committee, but I think the course came off well. Happy to send the SIs with a course diagram your way if you'd like. Dan DeLave was in one of the whalers and I know he posts here sometimes - he can give you the working-boat perspective as we kept him hopping.