Gosh, I don't know how I survived my early years of racing through the 1940's and 1950's. At our yacht club on Lake Erie, we had fixed marks out on the lake, and we had a fixed starting line straight out from one side of our channel. The race committee started and finished the races from shore, and we did not have such a thing as a mark boat or chase boat or rescue boat or any kind of powerboat on the water. We had multiple classes -- Thistles, Lightnings, Highlanders, International 21's, and Snipes -- probably 50 boats every weekend. If a boat got swamped and started to sink, somebody would eventually come out and tow him in.