Day #2 Post-Race Discussion

Written by: Jens

When the sailors launch their boats to head out, they have to hand in their name badges and then retrieve them when they come back in. Today, the race committee told everyone to make sure they grabbed their badges. I bet they were relieved when they found out that all the sailors were back.

I’m sure there are a lot of interesting stories from the other sailors; I hope to hear a few. I saw some of the official pictures from today, and in some, the race committee could not see the other end of the starting line when boats appeared to be starting a race. If in fact they were starting, that would be totally unfair to all of the sailors.

We were discussing the racing afterwards, and it was noted that someone could have easily just turned downwind at any time, instead of going to the windward mark. No one would know the difference. Given the pressures of doing well at the world level, this would not surprise me at all. A person could have sat a couple hundred yards upwind of the starting line and wait for the starting gun, and then take off. No one would know.

I told Brad and one of his buddies that they should protest the race committee for allowing today’s race to count. But, they didn’t feel strong enough to go that far. I hope someone protested.

The winds today were about 12 knots (24km/hr), so the boats weren’t just gliding about out there. Potential for collisions would have been very high.

After watching the news tonight, I think it would be wise to stock up on some groceries. After Bill, we might not be able to get food for a while. The race committee said they want every one there 7:00 am Monday morning, to help set things up for racing again. Bill might have different plans.