On the thread "Why are there Regattas" Flounder said the following:


Race committees can use whatever kind of course they want. So, does Flounder or anybody have ideas for more interesting courses? Might be fun to come up with some new ideas. Even crazy ones.

No new ideas, but I certainly enjoyed the "B" mark Rick threw in at the Tradewinds. With some wind, that can be alot of fun to reach to, even without the spin. I dont think we flew the spin too many times to B when the wind piped up, just a little too hot. It did oscillate when you got closer to B, then you could pull out the cloth and go fast!

We do have a race here in Columbia that we call "One Lap of Lake Murray". Its probably <10 miles, not really a lap since the lake has 640 miles of shoreline, but it is fun! Some years we have stopped at Bomb Island(called Bomb Island as it was a practice target for Jimmy Doolittle in WWII) and all had a beer, then continued on, its all for fun, not timing or anything serious, just a fun sail around some Islands.

David Mosley
www.seacats.org

How about some figure-8s

If there is enough wind, I wouldn't mind seeing some hull-flying contests on occasion. Placing these close to a public beach would draw some attention.

Cat44 fleet in Ft Lauderdale have a hull flying competition. They even keep track of who has flown the longest.

At my club, a couple of times a year we have a "Whole club persuit race" with the slowest being oppies and the fastest Hurricanes / Tornados.

We use most of the marks in this map :



And if it's windy, we might do 2 -> 2 1/2 laps in a "100 minute persuit race" (I would be sailing for approx 63 minutes).

Hi Mary,
Most fun course I`ve sailed was at an inland lake with bays protruding all over, with quite low water it was difficult to set a standard olympic (good old days) course, so the race officer came up with this one :
-Start through a gate, go upwind to A-mark, back downwind through gate.
-sail downwind on broad-reach course to B-mark, back to gate on close-hauled fetch/beat.
-Downwind again to C-mark on the opposite tack, back to gate on a fetch/beat.
-Do it all over again, as many times as the wind allows.
Race Officer can shorten at any time, since boats go through the gate in the centre of the course, on each leg.

Shifty winds make it interesting - sometimes the "fetch" becomes a beat and you battle to lay the gate, other times it frees off & becomes a drag race upwind.
It might not be the most tactically challenging course, but for a long-distance race of many laps it keeps everything close together, great for spectators, and can be finished easily if the wind drops off.
See attached pic, if it worked.

Cheers
Steve

Not really a new course, but a strong vote for the offset mark. The offset mark is the second mark located at least 100 ft from the windward mark, slightly downwind. The use of this mark helps avoid collisions at the windward mark, usually caused by boats jibing into the port tackers approaching the weather mark.

In the 1995 Hobie 17 Nationals at Long Beach, I was involved in a collision that would have been avoided with the offset mark. It cost me a new Wing . At the Nationals in Monterey in 2004, two Hobie 17's were destroyed because of a windward mark accident. See the latest Catamaran Sailor page 23 for a picture of one of the damaged boats. I was just ahead of the boats, and heard the collision. The other boat, received similar damage, as they were locked up, and wave action destroyed the second boat also. The safety boat responded quickly, and both sailors were extracted, and the boats towed ashore. This was another race with the favored approach on the port layline to the weather mark. An offset mark would have been used, but the water was quite deep, plus rough weather conditions.

Hopefully we will see more offset marks at future events.

Caleb Tarleton

Some of these ideas probably won't work in a "real" regatta.

I taught both monohull and cat sailing. On our "race" days, I would set up the usual 3 legged triangle. The students would carry red buoys. They were required to drop the buoy overboard anyplace they wanted on the course and do a man-overboard drill picking it up again. It was fun to watch them decide when to do so as it could dramatically affect their positions.

Other variations that I used included doing the course backwards, starting with the lee mark 2) setting up a slalom course where they went top to bottom through the gates and back again for a bit more interesting situation teaching and using right-of-way rules and 3) Le Mans starts off the dock, sailing to a mark and returning where crews and skippers would be required to switch roles and take off again.

All of my courses were made small enough that a race would take less than 10 minutes to complete. This allowed for more races and greater opportunities for folks to try again. This way if someone is behind in a race, it doesn't take a long time until the next one.

Sheldon
P-18

I have to second the offset mark idea.

[rant on] Spin boats are nearly blind coming around the top mark with the spin up or in the process of going up, and there are far to many teams on the port layline and yes some even overstood coming in with 0 rights and expecting the boats going downwind to avoid them because they (the port tackers) are hard on the wind! Nevermind the fact the boats going downwind are almost always on starbard after initially rounding the top mark. [rant off]

YES, an offset is a VERY good idea!

Ding

Good point, Caleb -

The offset is an effective fleet management tool when big fleets are involved. Similar to gates, they relieve some congestion at mark roundings. Gates and offsets are not usually needed in smaller fleets, though.

Also, the 100-feet seems a little big. That's almost a short reach mark... depends on fleet size, but I've seen offsets around 30-45 feet or about two boatlengths. Also good for guaging that magic circle of "I'm right, you're wrong!"

Watch that ground tackle! Offsets are sometimes smaller hippity hops without weights!

For the record, I'm in the standard course corner. Other courses are fun, but the hamburger sausage courses are the most tactical IMO. A well-set standard course by the RC should be the most fair contest between different teams' skills. That's half of my personal "fun factor."

but why not pork or turkey sausage?

or low-carb no-carb tofu patties with sprouts 'till we're dizzy.. er... dizzier.

off-topic - I got a new roof today! Only took four months to get the Ivan tarp off! Wahoo!

Are you making this out to be a "white meat only" thing??

Hurray! Does this mean we can grill out sausages at your house? (I'm getting hungry)

Hi Mary

In 88 a number of catsailing teams raced in the Ultimate Yacht Race series using a center gate course on then brand new H-21s with spin , a new innovation for cats at the time,-along with J-24s and Ultimate 30s in seperate classes .
A professional racing series made for TV sponcored by commercial sponsors and advid racers from Texas. The Ultimate Y R was shown on NBC Sports TV that fall.
Roger and I were fortunate enough to win the event held in New London Conn. though in OCT on Long Island Sound ,-it was ccooolllddd ,-again in 88 ,in the days before drysuits were readily available ,-or at least before I had one .
I visabley had signs of hypothermia ,shaking etc ,in watching the film latter .
The TV camera part was fun to watch latter,-{{no autographs please }} --kept waiting for someone to ask ,but no takers ,-but there were many of the current stars {rock stars}of sailing from Americas Cup events and others in attendance racing in the Ultimate 30 and J-24 Classes.
Any way -the course used was large and had a center gate between A and C mark that all had to pass through . The concept was to keep racing boats close and more reliant on speed and tactics rather than taking a flyer off to one extreme side ,the theory being it would be more interesting for sailors and spectators alike .
We had 4 days of racing using the center gate in all types of conditions,-from light wind races to gusts to 40 one day ,though fleets were small.
The final day of racing {think we won 5 k } we took the start and sailed well upwind ,but
we were passed going downwind right at the gate with spin FLYING in about a 15 to 20 wind having overstood the gate and misjudged the tidal current., The gate was at an off angle on starboard especially for higher sailing angle cats and only 10 boatlengths wide .
We were using a Hood spin developed for the H-21 mainly by Carlton and the other team was using a highly advertised North spin ,-the team had recently returned from the Olympics held in Korea that year and was well sponsored.
Great guys as I recall who we had a great race week with and dinners and drinks afterward .We passed the team back again at the gate going upwind the final day for all the marbles with them tacking too close and us squeeking through their lee to clear wind and backwinding them .
There were also on course referees which did not call them on tacking too close though could have , it made for TV drama however showing the ref boat speeding up at the ready near the center gate .

Rog and I rounded the final A mark about 10 lengths ahead on the final spin run to C and the finish line . On the first spin run Rog had left the boards down ,so we tryed raising them up on the final leg and sailed a lower line with less reaching and more leeway on the heavy 21s with their big full spins . We passed through the center gate about 6 lengths ahead and in what seemed at the time like an eternity we held on in a steady increasing lead in confused seas with lots of spectator chop to win a close finish and the winners purse.

The center gate added an interesting tactical element and navigational aspect to the event and did make the event more interesting .

I hope we see events and courses like this again in the not too distant future and for the new generation of catsailors .

Hope that is at least a little entertanining ,-informative and helpfull ,-
Thanks as always Mary for Catsailor and all you do ,-and similar memories of the great racing we had also and you partisipated in here in the midwest in that decade timeframe .
all the best --Carl

A few more interesting ones we have done:

*** 2 gates, 2miles apart, set approx. 45 degrees across the eye of the wind. The gates are 25' wide. You have to enter between them and you can exit however you want. Makes for quite race. Three boats wide entering the gate... ha ha ha

*** The oval. Setup 10 bouys in an oval shape about 1/2mile in diameter. Some guys sail along the bouys, some sail out and come back on fast reaches. Gets interesting with shifty wind. 10 laps a race.

*** The "Swap Meet"... Two-boat teams, each with a skipper and crew. Simple A-C-A-C finish, but every rounding of the C-mark, you have to swap crew on the water, on the fly.


I know the traditional setup is to attempt to test a sailor on all points of sail to make them better sailors. I am just not big on tradition when it gets in the way of variety.

Carl,
Very gentlemanly of you to not mention what decade it was that we are were competing against each other in Division 10.

I think that "hourglass" course you are talking about was one of the courses that was considered for some of the Olympic classes several years back. One of the pluses was that spectator boats would be able to assemble close in the "waist" of the hourglass on each side.

That course was not accepted. I guess there was a perception that it would be too dangerous, with so many boats coming together in the middle like that. But, on the other hand, it certainly would have been more exciting from a spectator standpoint.

Mary & Carl,

You must remember racing around Diamond Lake In Cassopolis, MI.

How many trips around the island?

Do I remember a cable operated ferry to the island?

It was great sport!

Jack Kartz

Another interesting division 10 regatta was the Clark Lake icebreaker regatta held in the mid-70's to the mid 80's.
I learned to race on that lake. The lake is hourglass shaped with marks at the four corners of the hourglass and one mark in the middle. You could never really tell if you were first or last. On the up side you, were never really out of a race either.

John

100 feet... short reach?! Is that a little boat thing?