One of the main reasons that the weather (or offset) mark is a dangerous place with spinnaker boats is that the crews are so busy hoisting the kite and adjusting things, they may be more likely to take their eyes off the road.

While this won't fix all the problems, one major help here is to have a separate (longer) weather mark (and offset) for the spinnaker boats. Won't help much in a 50-boat spinnaker fleet, but will help a ton in mixed fleets.

There are other issues that can happen elsewhere on the course that cannot be easily addressed with rule changes. The primary one is spinnaker boats on the edge of control when it's blowing like stink. They have to bear off (a lot sometimes), which can be unexpected for boats going upwind.

Anyway, I'm tired but my point is that I emphasize with this issue, and didn't want to sound preachy in my prior post. But, as others have mentioned, the worst thing on a course (for all of us) is any boat that is sailing around, knowing that they can't see. At that point, snuff the spinnaker, or buy a boat that you can actually control.

Mike