John,
This reminded me of crowded gate rounding at last year's OCR. We were approaching on S planning to round the right-hand gate mark. A large nubmer of boats (~30) were coming down on port, at least 50% looking to head to the left hand gate.
It's a tricky situation...how much room do you give if you don't know which mark the port tacker wants to take? If you give plenty for him to take the left mark, and then he takes the right, you're screwed. Gotta really watch the 2-BL circle border to your mark and know the traffic prediction all the way through.
We did an early douse in anticipation of the need for quick manouvering. Glad we did this, the extra visibilty sure helped. As we picked our way through the train...all port boats gybing to round the right hand mark had to swing wide to round...creating an ever growing pinwheel effect. Since we came in on S and without the spinny up, we could make a very tight tactical rounding...and passed at least 5 other boats on the pinwheel.
Lesson learned: Pay close attention to boats on port from waaaay out that might have overlap at the gate - you owe them room at the right-hand mark, even though you are on starboard. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Plan for it instead of realizing it at the last possible second (two-boatlength circle) and your rounding will be more tactical.
