6 Boat lengths minimum, max 10.

There is no hard and fast rule. You need to watch the fleet as they approach and see what sort of confusion there is.

Even at the worlds in Mexico, we had them at about 7ish. 140 boats had no problem working their way through.

What is most important is that they are square to the wind, however you can skew them if need be to force boats to not all take the same side.

We skew the gate makes and the windward marks to adjust for either wind sheer or current.

Michael Walker
CYA IV Race Officer (or is it Senior Canadian RO?)