Here we go again... What's the point of a chase boat?

Chase and watch the action??? I don't think so.

What you are actually implying is that you want a race Crash boat to pick up the pieces for someone's personal crisis.

Chase boats and Safety boats are extremely problematic raising all sorts of expectations or implications for all involved. (How many safety boats... what training for people on a safety boat, What if they failed to observe a crash and a disaster then occurs? Is clueless newbie counting on the crash boat to save his butt so he will push the envelope on the OA's dime?)

IMO, J is a good Samaritan on a power boat who will try to assist in events he is attending...
Fantastic... but no competitor should ever entertain the notion that J will save their butt.

There is always a tradeoff for an organizing authority for beach cats and big mono's or multihulls... when they allow beach cats to race... What is the chance that one of their non catamaran competitors will have to drop out or request redress for assisting the beach cat in the middle of his personal crisis... If beach cats get the rep that we just count on the slow monohulls to bail us out... that is just not fair and we won't be invited to play again.

Our form of racing is inherently a bit riskier and we need to make sure the culture of self rescue and sufficiency is well known. Responsibility is always on the captain. Now a days we do a pretty good job of communicating the culture to the world at large and our sailors ... We hail Mayday when life is a risk.. We handle property issues on our own. Since the GT300 sailors triggered the epurb's.... they felt that life was at risk.... the property is replaceable or just lost.

Years ago a competitor fired off a flare in a C100.. The CG scrambled a helicopter...and were not able to find the shooters... Lots of bitching to the RC about where was the emergency... eventually the offenders sailed in under their own power. The crisis... well it was very dark and they were being separated from a tow in the distance. Bottom line.... Our mistake for not educating the sailor.... His mistake for not educating himself.

I have noticed that the west coast sailors seem to have chase boats on their distance courses. It may actually be required by the OA to allow the beach cat class to enter. This is very different then the other coasts. I don't think it's a real solution and designating "chase boats" is a bad idea all around.