Here is a question about the Racing Rules that has been bugging me since it happened to me in a regatta over a year ago. Here is the situation... Facts Boat 1 (Blue) is a Laser on starboard tack sailing by the lee. Boat 2 (Red) is a Laser on starboard tack in the same race who has already rounded the leeward mark and is sailing close-hauled. Neither boat changes course. The two boats make contact when the end of the boom of the Blue boat brushes the sail of the Red boat.  read more »

For Saturday's Anniversary Cup distance race, I again had race committee duty. Originally, "Twinkletoes" had been supposed to take the previous regatta's committee boat duty, but he'd been out of town at a wedding, so I wound up with three club regattas in a row to start, which cut down on my sailing time of late. Going into the weekend, "score" for the year was but 21 days of sailing -- plus who knows how many days of race committee and playing around on kayaks and such.

Saturday's regatta was made more challenging by the lack of committee boat crew and by the blustery winds, which were blowing and gusting in the twenty to forty-knot range. Our committee boat for the regatta was an eighteen-foot sterndrive powerboat with an open bow that had the unfortunate habit of taking on water in the steep chop.  read more »

Since my supply of test is not unlimited, today I have a different exercise for you. In the picture I've drawn a situation from a protest from a couple of years back in the Friese Hoekrace 2006
Both boats are 20 meter barges with lee boards, the race was during daylight in calm sea, with about 4 Bft wind. The collision caused considerable damage, particularly to the windward boat (yellow) and after the protest the skipper asked for a written decision according to RRS 65.2. He was considering going to appeal and wanted a report for his insurance company.  read more »

(Click on the images to enlarge) I've always wondered what the circumstances were that caused False Whitehead Harbor, near my home on the lower west side of Penobscot Bay, to get its name. Did some hapless sailor, working his way down the Muscle Ridge Channel, actually mistake the north side of Sprucehead Island for the north side of Whitehead, the next island to the southwestward? Did this poor innocent voyager cast his anchor in the evening, sleep through the night, row ashore in the morning, and discover that he wasn't where he thought he was? Or could it have been worse than that? Could it have been a foggy day, and could our sailor have cut the corner of the island fine, thinking he would make an anchorage between tiny Seal Island and the northeast corner of Whitehead, and instead hit the reef that sticks a long way out from the northeast corner of Sprucehead?  read more »

There is a Pearson 424 owner's organization - Of course I belong to it - that has such a tremendous wealth of information and opinion from people who have sailed the 424 all over the world. All of us have had similarly different experiences (that's not double-speak - your right hand is like your left hand only different, if you get my drift) and have come up with some pretty spectacular solutions.  read more »