Let me get this straight. A small motor vessel, trailing fishlines, is motoring right through a sailboat race course just upwind from the leeward mark ?

And the guy thinks he has got any rights ?

He pretty much abused you into pay but I can fully understand you gave in when some of your fellow sailors started to support this guy. An ugly story indeed.

Personally I would just have stopped and put in a slow tack, taking the hit in racing the A.


Actually we had a similar story in our club race last sunday. A sailing yacht was admiring the bunch of beach cats, all tightly grouped at a particular spot and wondering what those big orange bouy were doing in the water. And the yacht was moving along in a straight line nicely when the horn sounded and about 10 beach cats came screaming at it at about 10-14 knots speed. It continued on as it appeared that all the cats would pass it just a stern. Of course the course was perfectly along the coastline and only some 500 meters out. The yacht had to tack sometime or risk grounding. It tack right before the windward mark and starboarded the whole middle and rear pack of the racing fleet almost right on the mark.

At those situations you can hear racing crews yell :"hold you course !" and see them screaming passed the boat on both sides.

Now mishap happened but this particular yacht will remember next time what big orange bouys mean.

Wouter