Originally Posted by John Williams
Ah - tactically a tough spot. You're not going to out-point a mono after the rounding in that situation, and I see that tacking away wasn't an option. I imagine I would have footed hard to try and break through his lee - if there's a good bit of track left, you really need to get by him to make your rating work. If you're near the finish, you might not have any other option than to do what you did - lock in and hold with him as high as you can to keep ahead of the Pac Men behind you.

Sportsmanship? Supposed to be at the top of the pile throughout the course. He was being a sportsman, in a way, by using the tactical advantage to cancel out your speed advantage. That's a good opportunity for discussion at the bar later - "Hey, good job holding me off after that last mark. You know I would have gotten you if I broke free, right? Cheers - I'll get you next time."


Interestingly I choose the perhaps not so PC route of after the 3 boat lengths I luffed him up enough to cause both boats to go almost into wind, at which stage he then purposely turned into my boat, shouted protest and demanded I do a 720.

Now thinking this was a bit rich, there was a bit of verbal between parties about being unsportsmanly and why bother when he was on a PN of 860 and I'm on 680.

He carried on enough that he approached the RC and wished to arrange a protest, only to be told he would be the only person in the bar, and thats what so good about local Wednesday night racing, apart from a few, nobody really takes it all to seriously.

Nice discussion guys, learning lots here.