PU used to run NAs with winds into the high 20s / low 30s. We were all younger and crazier then, and would go out as long as the RC was willing to run races.

Even on H16s, on Rehoboth Bay (Dewey Beach, DE) with its flat water, 1/3 of the fleet was ashore by the end of the first race. By the time the later races were running, only about 1/3 of the fleet was still racing. At one start, 1/3 of the boats on the water flipped at the start. Those ashore were there because they were either smart, tired, capsized and/or had broken boats. We had less wind, but big waves last year in Galveston, and lots of carnage.

When cats collide at "survival" speed on the water, bad things happen, and many times, the hulls aren't repairable. To say nothing of the people.

Again, I think there is some aspect of it that we're getting older, but we also don't get these conditions often enough to train for it. Either way, the result is that it's unsafe and not fun for most of the fleet in those conditions.

Mike