Being on the pin boat at the worlds gave me a front row seat (literally) to watch various starting techniques, especially under black flag conditions. (We gave the fleet one P flag (Blue Peter in British/Aussie parlance) start before going to black - most of the Blue Peter starts were a mob scene. Out of the 60+ start sequences we ran, we only got off a few Blue Peter starts. After a while, we just started off with the black flag. All the finals races started under black.)

Blaine Dodds and Jason Waterhouse had particularly interesting starting techniques that didn't involve sitting in one place - but that's the subject of a Hotline article and won't be revealed here.

Lest we forget, a North American team did place 5th - Jason Hess and Irene Abascal from Guatemala. There were no Puerto Ricans or Mexicans there, who are traditionally strong in Hobie 16s. There was only one Canadian team.

Another area where we're weak is kinetics. We just haven't been taught to ooch and pump - but the top guys are doing it a lot.