first, they fessed up to cutting the corner and that's why they got a penalty. So...that's a good start. In my opinion, the race committee leaves a huge open door in the rules by not clarifying the penalty in the SI's. Their penalty varies leaving you to wonder if the penalty would change based on who it was an in what position they were in. In contrast to previous years, it was not announced that cutting a corner would result in a DSQ. The phrase was this year; "MAY result in a DSQ".

I was in about 7th place around the first (correct) buoy and watched the boats that missed it. I was pretty close to the lead (of the boats that rounded the correct buoy) when we started back for the beach and Mischa was nearly out of sight on the horizon. 40 Minutes is probably not much more than the advantage he gained...They owned their mistake, but I don't think the RC applied enough penalty for not sailing around the right marks this time OR the last time (the last time this happened there ended up being NO penalty).

While we're on the subject of rules in this race - how would you feel about a drifter finish where one of the boats you're working hard to beat and are neck and neck with makes a left turn into the surf 100 yards shy of the finish line and has their ground crew run them north to the finish line and beats you by 5 to 8 minutes?