how not to do it

We decided to run a series on sundays with 3 races run from our bigger rib which involved making a new start set up.
All duly organised done ready for last Sunday, get out on the water go to fire the first sound signal, no hooter, whistle nothing. Loud shouts had to surfice untill I borrowed a whistle from one of the helms.

Then relised that my new optimum sailing watch does not display seconds(nore did the safety boat drivers). Luckily wind was light enough for a quick dash by the saety boat for hooter and watch with seconds.

The new watch was of course on a different time so made the results maths twice as hard as normal.Lsst straw though was finding somebody had borrowed the calculater we use for results luckily a laptop came to the rescue.


I am pleased to say despite very shifty wind which caused a few of the start lines to be very one sided all taking part enjoyed the change from club line starts and no complaints apart from rude comments about my limp hooter!

Will now put together my own bag with very loud hooter, watch etc ready for the next one in July.






I

Technically you should be using the flags to start your watch

What you guys need is a 12 page SOP manual to tell you exactly what to do for a 50 minute Wednesday evening race*.

Edited by yellowwelly - 03 Jun 13 at 11:38am

Hi James
we do have a multi page idiots guide for running races from our club line. But this was from a commitee boat and luckily for open meetings we have a couple of very experienced teams with all the right qualifications and all the right kit including range finders gps etc for locating marks precicely.
Average lap racing as you guessed including 49er but only as slow as a feva.

At our club, we have a higher proportion of adult total newcomers than most, half of them wouldn't know an S from a P flag, but they do achieve what most of you yottie types miss, and that is the ef word, fun.

It is supposed to be fun, not another rule filled ritual.

I agree with jimbo about the finish being near the club, my new, this time last year had never sailed in his life crew, likes to wave to his other half as he finishes, she and her friends have re invigorated our club and the social side, this sunday just gone he'd won, had a couple more friends down, thinking of joining and taking up sailing, infectious innit? The local chandlery was another couple of hundred quid better off as he bought a new harness...

Bottom line how not to do it is to make it complicated at club level, OK sure enough if it's an open meeting then things should ratchet up to another level, but seriously if you want to continue to grow the sport without trawling the kids via squads route, it needs to be easy to understand and fun.