Thanks for all the great explanations.

To explain why/where the Committee boat was on the finish line; we would have the boat on the right end, even in America, but because we had 4 separate fleets starting/finishing, and a shortage of committee boat volunteers, what we normally do is anchor the boat once and leave it there, put the start line ball off to the left (looking upwind) and the finish line ball off to the right of the anchored boat. That way, you can be running a start sequence on the left side of the boat for one fleet while another fleet is finishing on the right side of the boat.

This is also why they keep the start-finish lines closed, which makes for quite a large -no sail- area in the middle of the course, where the best wind is... <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />