I felt like I was in a time warp at Tradewinds - many of the procedures, courses and the like have not been used in North American Hobie Class events for several years.

The ISAF starting sequence is much more flexible than the fixed starting sequence used at Tradewinds - even if it would have added 10 minutes to the total starting sequence. For example, the F-18's could have been started on time the first race (we were mostly all there at 9:00 AM) without having to start the other classes. Instead, we sat around and froze our a$$es off for 40 minutes waiting for the other classes to get out to the course. Same thing for waiting between races - the F-18's could have been started on their second race instead of waiting for the last boat in all the other classes to finish. That's when my crew got hypothermic - from sitting around for 20 minutes between races.

The ABCAC course (Course 4) was dropped from the Hobie Class standard course chart two years ago, because it's a race to the first weather mark, then a drag race. It spreads out the fleet and doesn't provide the passing opportunities that a W/L race has. The 4x course helped, but still, that was the first F-18 course I've ever sailed around the cans that had a true reaching leg.

Downwind gates and finishes are used almost exclusively at HCA events instead of the single downwind mark and upwind finishes that were used at Tradewinds. Gates help prevent congestion at the leeward mark and provide passing opportunities. Downwind finishes are tactically challenging, especially in spinnaker boats.

Separate start/finish lines work particularly well with the ISAF starting sequence, but Rick's argument about moving the marks doesn't hold water for the type of start sequence he was using. The start and finish pin positions can be marked with small buoys (fenders) on the same side of the signal boat and a larger bouy clipped on to the appropriate one as necessary. You don't need to move the ground tackle to reset.

Want to emphasize that I truly appreciate the time and effort that Rick, Mary and everybody else put into giving us a good time and I am writing this to be constructive, and not just critical.

The Hobie Class has been spoiled with the top-shelf race management we've gotten from the likes of Paul Ulibarri (running the Tornados at the Miami OCR this week), Mark Santorelli, Mike Walker and Irene McNeill at our major events. That's why Mike and Karen Grisco got confused with the separate start/finish lines. They're not likely to make that same mistake twice.