Was I rusty!
Race Officered the NSSA Championships at Farmoor Reservoir over the weekend. 70 odd boats and I like to do everything - including timing, sighting the line, sounding the signals and recording ever boat and its time every lap.
OK I only do the class flag, and that is on a stick, so only needs one hand, the sound signal is a foot pedal and the tape recorder and radio can go in the other hand. I sit in a hatch n the cabin top so everything is to hand. Recording is just a case of writing the vital information - and I had o revert to tape on one finish and I missed two lasers that went through in a pack - as I said I was rusty.
Anyway on race 2 I was sufficiently rusty that I lowered the Topper Class Flag at the 1 min signal - we use 3-2-1, as we have 3 classes to get away before the fast boats come round again. Now, I know I should have put up the AP and gone through a correct sequence - that is what the book says. But after half a minute, it was obvious that none of the Toppers cared about the flags. So at the start we hooted the hooter - no one was over the line - and let them go. No one has commented on it.
Similarly on the Sunday morning the boats were late coming out. I felt we had given them plenty of warning and there were about half a dozen boats on the line on time, waiting for the start. We actually postponed for 2 minutes which meant that threequarters of the first fleet got to the line. Actually it was an oppy which persuaded me that we should get on with it and reward those boats that were there on time. The question is, having postponed, should we have waited for everyone? Again no one has commented.
Another factor - was that it was a windy weekend - gusting 28kts - so everyone was pretty tired by the time they got ashore. That might have had something to do with why there were no comments when they came ashore, and the reason we didn't have a single OCS all weekend.
OK I only do the class flag, and that is on a stick, so only needs one hand, the sound signal is a foot pedal and the tape recorder and radio can go in the other hand. I sit in a hatch n the cabin top so everything is to hand. Recording is just a case of writing the vital information - and I had o revert to tape on one finish and I missed two lasers that went through in a pack - as I said I was rusty.
Anyway on race 2 I was sufficiently rusty that I lowered the Topper Class Flag at the 1 min signal - we use 3-2-1, as we have 3 classes to get away before the fast boats come round again. Now, I know I should have put up the AP and gone through a correct sequence - that is what the book says. But after half a minute, it was obvious that none of the Toppers cared about the flags. So at the start we hooted the hooter - no one was over the line - and let them go. No one has commented on it.
Similarly on the Sunday morning the boats were late coming out. I felt we had given them plenty of warning and there were about half a dozen boats on the line on time, waiting for the start. We actually postponed for 2 minutes which meant that threequarters of the first fleet got to the line. Actually it was an oppy which persuaded me that we should get on with it and reward those boats that were there on time. The question is, having postponed, should we have waited for everyone? Again no one has commented.
Another factor - was that it was a windy weekend - gusting 28kts - so everyone was pretty tired by the time they got ashore. That might have had something to do with why there were no comments when they came ashore, and the reason we didn't have a single OCS all weekend.
posted by Nigel Vick at
1:30 PM
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