Hey guys, you sail races to test your abilities as a "sailor" first and foremost. That means taking the greatest advantage of the PREVAILING conditions to actually sail a prescribed course in the shortest time. The fact that there are other boats on the course is in reality, superfluous. The "true sailor/racer" treats all other boats on the water as nothing more than obstacles to keep clear of, or at best, wind indicators, and not really as "competition" as the only thing that you are really "competing" against is your own natural ability to make errors on the water. Every race should be a personal test in eliminating the errors that you do make, with the object of eventually sailing the "perfect race" Of course, no matter how well you do sail, you know that "if only I had done this" or "if only I had done that" you would have sailed a much better race (even if you are the best sailor ever created by god you could never sail the “perfect race”) If you eliminate more of your mistakes than everyone else sailing eliminates their’s, then you naturally win as a by product, but “winning” in itself should not be the source of your satisfaction with a race that you happened to “cross the line first” in, satisfaction should come from your successfully improving your “on the water abilities” (become truly “in tune” with nature)
To even dream of becoming a truly competent sailor you have to be able to take every advantage offered in EVERY wind and water condition that it is possible to race in, and you can never do this if you set limits to the type of conditions that you are prepared to test yourself in (unless you actually are god), - if you never race in wind strengths below 5 knots you will never be ABLE to race in winds below 5 knots.
All the sailors that I have met that complain about races held in 5 knots minus, have generally been guys that sail poorly in the light airs and more often than not will not persevere in those races, but pull out instead part way through and complain about the race committees decision to continue the race. You never hear the guy that won that light air race complain about the conditions, he was usually concentrating to much on successfully keeping his boat moving towards the finish line to even think about complaints.