5° ‘off’. We complain if a racecourse isn’t perfectly lined up to the breeze when the reality is as long as it’s the same for every- one it doesn’t matter. Start the race! Wind shift and the line is 30° off? So what!! If you can’t cross on starboard – so what! Makes for some interesting scenarios. A shift right before the start means that the person paying attention is going to win the start anyway. Just send the fleet. One quick side note. A message to the
America’s Cup. Let’s talk about upper and lower wind limits… During my America’s Cup tenure I can’t tell you how many times we were towed back into port after a race was cancelled due to the ‘upper wind limit’ being reached and towing back in through an Oppi regatta happening and the kids fly- ing around whooping with enjoyment. Or have you ever tried to commentate on live global TV with the opportunity to show some of the coolest boats on the planet in windy conditions, only to have the race shut off because the breeze was 1kt above (or below) the stated rule requirements? I have. About a thousand times. No more upper or lower wind limits. If
the PRO thinks you can race, then race. And the PRO should be given a LOT of latitude to race in almost any conditions. No waiting in flukey conditions. Send them! When it gets dangerous, fine, but up to that point, get out there and show off the best of our sport.
3 Reduce the need for so many boats and volunteers to run races I know well that volunteers are a hard ask for any sailing club or association trying to run a race or regatta. I recently did a Club- Swan 50 event and they used really cool self-propelled, no anchor GPS-controlled race marks – they were working in current and good breeze and waves and it made for
58 SEAHORSE
Sprint to the dock… Rolex Race Week in Newport RI. When flag F is flown by the NYYC race committee alongside the course signals boats racing windward-leeward courses on the ocean courses on Rhode Island Sound will finish just outside the entrance to Newport Harbor. The prevailing southwesterly seabreezes usually turn this extended final leg up the East Passage of Narragansett Bay into a ‘tricksy’ mix of reaching and downwind sailing with the occasional quick flip to white-sails as the land influence kicks in (giving those with the most inland racing experience special cause to smile)
simple racecourse adjustments and far fewer people needed to run the races. If you are a starting-line perfectionist PRO this gives you free reign to move the mark up to about five minutes before the start and still allow people to ping the pin. Fewer people. Fewer anchor lines. Fewer
boats needed. Less fuel. I couldn’t believe how something like this wouldn’t be cost- effective for all yacht clubs around the globe. And please put an AIS unit on the committee boat and the pin so we don’t have to ‘ping’ any more. Pinging is becoming one of the most dangerous parts of racing!
4 Please race out to the starting area and in from the finish area Make more races count. Why are we sail- ing or motoring for an hour out to the
racecourse and an hour back? Wasting time. Make it a simple point-to-point race or around a few government marks and finish at the posted starting area. Don’t waste time. Sailboat racing is called racing and it’s not called sailboat delivering. I love sailing. It is my passion, my
hobby, my job. I have been lucky enough to do pretty much every type of sailing in my life and I feel so strongly that we have an opportunity right now to change the trajectory of our sport and get more people involved by not wasting their time. At any level… Please please please give any or all of these ideas a try. Every organising authority can implement these ideas, from the purely professional to the completely social side of sailing. Ken Read is President of North Sails q
DANIEL FORSTER/ROLEX
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