What about SIMBO's?

Uhhh.... I think I can help find some of these "boat operators" that would be acceptable to (almost) all.!

Is one of them pictured in your avatar? :P

As I suggested before, that would be a SIMBO (Sisterhood as opposed to Brotherhood)

I guess I'm due to tell what happened as best I know.

I had come around A mark in good shape and jibed immediately as that was the favored tack with the wind shift to go almost directly to C mark. I was getting close to the start finish line and had to figure out how to get around it efficiently. I was rolling downwind flying hull on Port. I heard someone calling starboard around me and was looking all around for which boat it was. I dodged a multicolored Hobie Wave by ducking deep less than 30 seconds before impact. I was probably doing 23-28mph at the time. At that speed on a 1.1 mile course you can be at C mark in about 2.5 minutes because the wind had shifted right. I tell you I had my head up and was looking around for boats. That's about the time I saw Dave's Wave right in front of me as if it had materialized out of thin air. I had about 2 seconds to do something and realized a move up or down was still going to impact him. I made sure I wasn't going to hit any people and braced for impact. I hit him hard with one hull and impacted with the other hull also. A classic T-boning. Dave never saw me and I never saw him before it was too late.

I race in big crowds all the time with mono's and multi's. I'm very used to dodging other boats. I'm not sure what the issue was. It wasn't that I had my head up my butt like usual though. I honestly think there was just too much traffic. When you are racing and checking 100 things at once it's hard to do it all.

I apoligized to Dave and sailed for shore with a big hole in my bow. Saw Dave on shore and looked at his boat. I couldn't find where I impacted that Hobie Wave.

I think Rick's plan to get us away from the other course is a good one. I think next year with a 3 day event they will draw a lot more boats from the North.

Is there a bigger racing area further out from Founders? With more boats and good wind a longer course would be nice. Though I can't complain about the race course much. They were doing a good job. The biggest issue was having to avoid the start/finish line. This caused us to have to jump out on trap and reach to the Pin and then we sometimes had to drop our chute to get to C mark. This makes for a silly train of boats. Another thing they could have done is pull the start mark after all the starts were finished.

If you end up doing the square race course thing please have different colored marks for the ones off to the left of the main course. When you are flying a chute it's easy to get confused to which mark you are going to if they are the same color.

A good friend of mine lives right next to Founders and has a powercat fishing boat. He is a long time racer (P19, F25C) that is retired at the moment. He said he would be happy to help next year even run a course if you want it. I can give you his contact info off line.

Would using the separate start/finish lines like they did at spring fever help with this?

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.

We did have separate lines


We tried, but the spin boats were upon the start line before we could get to it. Once one boat goes by and avoids the line, the mark has to stay or it would prejudicial to the lead boats.
Rick

"I think Rick's plan to get us away from the other course is a good one."

I agree. I was almost on the receiving end of a similar incident, but was able to get out of the way in time. From the blind side view, it's impossible for you to see every eventuality, imo.

Back to Hank's recent Spring Fever course. The fleet size is pretty similar to Tradewinds but I had the real feeling that last year the traffic we had to contend with was less. Having the start at the bottom of the course and the finish at the top did require more race committee people but because the starts would happen whenever a fleet got back in the start queue instead of in sequence when EVERYONE was finished, the fleet was much more spread out and I felt like the traffic was much easier to navigate through. The starts just keep rolling all day which kept the fleets spread out and got us more races.

The start and finish lines were also outside the course which made a BIG difference in traffic by opening up many more lanes up and downwind. With the start/finish line in the middle we were restricted to two or three lanes downwind causing a lot of congestion.

Someday you'll be sailing along, minding your own business and see an I-20 (or F18, I forget which) closing on you at warp speed. No humans to be seen, just a giant spinnaker. Your mind's eye will flash the word "BEHOLD" and then, grasshopper, you will attain enlightenment.

There is another organization - the Legion of Extraordinary Signal Boat Owners (or Operators, take your pick).

Their crest has yet to be designed.

/I'll get my hat . . .

Yeah, I had one or two of these out-of-body experiences as well last weekend!

Unfortunately, this means an unequal distribution of upwind vs. downwind legs. Fine for the OD classes, but not fair to the Portsmouth ones.

You can acheive nearly the same result by having a separate finish line below the gate, but out of the way of the starting area.

That is my favorite set up! Yet another reason Spring Fever is one of those can't miss events, even the 8 hour drive doesn't seem to take that long and I take the scenic route.

OK, I have Beths Pix also up on the site, linked from the story.
Rick

Good point - but really, though, as long as you have an open spin and open non-spin you should be mostly OK right? I'll bring this up with Hank for discussion...interesting idea to have the finish line at the bottom of the course too...would be hard to keep all the legs even port/starboard but then again so is a trapezoid.

Map of Founders Park area

Does anyone have a GPS point for Founders Park. I'm trying to identify it on this map.

I thought the Park was on Plantation Key. Your map is of Upper Matecumbe Key.

Definitely PLantation Key.

24 deg. 57' 43.70"N
80deg. 34' 11.19"W

Founders Park

Ok here is Founders on the map at the bottom near where it says Cowpens Anchorage.