This takes a little explaining, so bear with me.....

Some assumptions first

1, The fast (kite) boats want W/L and have their own Hcap event, Ditto slower (and non kite boats) want triangles and or square courses
2, Sounds like 5 fleets of varying performance (from Tornado to slow)

We have a similar problem at our club racing events (bear with me) and at the Cat open we also run (140 boats)

We have come up with an interesting solution.

1, Start the slow boats first and send them on triangles or squares, sharing the top mark with all other starts, but using an outside (deeper) bottom mark
2, Faster boats that want W/L courses inside the slower boats that are doing triangles or squares. The fast boats have a seperate bottom mark 50 yards directly to windward of the slow course.

So how does it work.....

Firstly the Ctte boat is set about 1/4 up the leg (a tradeoff, as everyone must go thru the line each time; but you could change the SI's to mean that boats only need to cross the line when finishing - your call, we find it helps the rece team to keep track of a couple of 100 boats by recording them each lap.)

i, Each start(slowest first) goes (hopefully) first time, if not, back of the queue
ii, with skill the first beat can be set so that each class does not bunch up at the first mark (or have done a whole lap before the last fleet (fastest) has started)
iii, as the fast boats are sailing W/L inside the slow boats it is very unlikley that the fast fleet gybing angles will mess with the slow fleet.
iv, Another bit of skill is working out when to finish each class (this is where it is usefull to know the average lap times of each fleet). The fast boats will be lapping quickly as they are faster and sailing less distance (W/L) so the controlling factor is the slow boats. You then (via wordings in the SI's) control how you finish fleets (either everyone once you start to finish the slow, or finish fleets as you see fit by hoisting the appropiate flags). With skill (and a bit of luck) you can end up with the last fast and last slow boat finishing within seconds of each other and then you can reset for the next sequence.

Note: it might be sensible to also add a short spacer at the top mark and make it a mark of the course for all starts to move the kite boats away form the windward mark.


There are +ve and -ve for this

+ve

1, Fast boats are inside and are not sharing the same bottom mark; there should be minimal interference assuming both botttom marks are set correctly
2, Fast boats get their W/L courses
3, The slow boats get their tight(er) reaches they want
4, Race officer can finish classes when (s)he wants as they all started on 10 laps
5, One windward mark, so if the wind shifts, only one mark needs moving first (the others for the slow fleet can be moved as the fleet is sailing up to the windward mark)
6, There is less passing (if any) down wind between fleets doing W/L vs triangles as there is a fair seperation.
7, More (all) close passing between fleets on different courses is done upwind
8, As the fleets are not sharing a bottom mark there are less (no) problems with Kite boats coming in deep and trying to drop kites while non kite boats appear underneath them.

-ve

1, With this method it is difficult (but not impossible) to set gates for the bottom marks.
2, Fast boats may complain that they do many laps (I'll take W/L sailing over procession racing on triangles thanks, and all the Spi sailors I know will too)
3, The slow boats end up sailing larger courses, so if they get sent around once too many times, it can hold things up somewhat - Race officer needs to have a good handle on the average lap times of each class and set a large number of laps to start with (we usually set 10 on a 2 mile (W/L) course if we can) and then shorten the slow boats at the right time.
4, Competitors can get confused as to whom is finishing if they don't know their flags.
5, The first windward mark can get busy on the first lap.

It works for our club starting boats from Lasers to boats around the speed of Tornado's !