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By Rick White
...you are getting ready to start. Is there something you should do?
You Bet!
For EACH and EVERY Start you MUST know the following:
1) the Favored End of the line
2) the Length of the Line (Time It)
3) the Transit of the Line
4) the Current.
So, how do you get all of this information quickly? I get asked this question every time I do a seminar! There is only a 3 minute sequence for starts and quite often the next sequence will start just as the boats cross the finish line. Not much time for them.
In doing my seminars over the years, I had the privilege of working with nearly forty of the World’s best sailors. These Guest Experts would help teach the seminars. And of the forty experts there were at least forty different ways to do this homework. But, I was most impressed with Randy Smyth’s technique. He simply sails up head-to-wind at the pin end of the line (See Diagram) and does the following:
1) sights perpendicularly across the mark. If the RC Boat is behind that sighting, it’s a pin-end favored line.
2) looks over the mark, then past the RC Boat to a stationary object on shore for the Transit.
3) looks at bubbles, the mark anchor rode, or whatever to see if there is any Current and which way it is flowing.
4) reach down the line and Time it.
This makes for “one-stop shopping.”