Too bad I'm not still doing the starts and finishes as I did for many years when Rick was just one of the racers -- then you might have some REAL complaints. For the 1st day start I would go out and just put two buoys in the water roughly parallel to the bridge, with no account for wind direction or anything. And I just told them "Whatever you do, don't even think about being over early."

Then I drove down to Anne's Beach and waded out as far as I could and put a buoy in the water for the finish. If the tide went out before they finished, sometimes they had to practically drag their boats across the finish line.

This is not some kind of "official" race. It doesn't say in the instructions anything about it being sailed under the US Sailing RRS. The sailors are entirely on their own and responsible for themselves and for, hopefully, helping fellow sailors in distress -- and also resolving any problems among themselves. If the race cannot be done that way, there will no longer be a race -- simple as that.

This race was not even our idea -- it was the brainchild of a guy named Chris Hampshire. So in 1985 Chris and four other sailors, including Rick, from our Miami Hobie fleet, decided to see if it could be done. It worked, so the group decided to make it an annual event. Since we live down here, I volunteered to set the start and finish lines and do the scoring.

It would be great if someone else wants to volunteer to do the starts and finishes for a change. Rick would like to be able to sail in the race again.