So if he takes it to the extreme of hunting someone? Protestable?

The Rabbit HAS to stay on a Port tack beat;

This document gives a good outline of how gate starts work: RYA gate start guide lines

Note point 7; The pathfinder shall maintain her course until released by the race officer.

See bottom of page 3 re problems with gate starts; Rule 2 / 69 on the path finder if they fail to behave!

There is a rule-of-thumb at the end of the document for calculating gate times; but the upwind speeds are way out for cats!!!!

This link is to a sailors eye view of a rabbit start. The start is at 1:04 in to the video.

Rabbit Start

Oops,I fixed the link.

One too many http in the address.

This is a rabbit start. Great shots.
Another Rabbit Start

Cool. What a rush!!!

They must use video to capture the finish standings?

Nice boats. Any idea why the use a spin set-up rather than rig like ours?

Pete, those were 505's, they use a symetrical spinnaker (and pinhead main) because....they never updated their class rules to the new technology? Very fast boats back in their day, the 49'r has overtaken them in speed but they are still quite popular.

It is harder to run their setup, so maybe they like the challenge, ie. only the really good teams can handle it. They have a single trap, the crew is really busy with the spinnaker work. I had one a long time ago, 1978-1980 or so, loved it, but my girlfriend (crew) hated it. I finally sold it for a Flying Scot, which she loved, but it was sooo slow...at least there was room for a cooler full of beer in the Scot!