I have not been racing since the early 1990's when there was still a Tornado Fleet racing in Quincy Bay, MA out of the Squantum Yatch Club. Since then, it seems that the Olympic Triangle to windward/leeward courses with gates. Looking at the Tornado Worlds, it seems that it is also broken into different stages. Could someone either give an explanation to the new race course or direct me to a web site that would help me sort this out. While I am not getting back into Tornado racing, except maybe for distance races, I am rebuilding a Waterat A-Class for racing out of the Bristol Yatch Club with its A-Class fleet. Thank you for any help. I can be reached directly at tsiders@hopkintoncc.com if you would prefer.

I am still looking for assistance with this question. A few views, but no response. Please help if you can.

I did not really understand the question, but without writing an essay on the subject..

The "new" windward/leeward with gate courses used in many classes are documented on page 5 in this PDF from the Tornado class: http://www.tornado.org/uploads/documents/Tornado%20Class%20Rules%20-%20Appendix%20C.pdf
Courses are much shorter than what you probably sailed on the Tornado earlier. You can often see the top mark before you start these days.

Olympic classes do fleet racing first, but finish it off with a medal race where the top 10 boats participate. Points are doubled in this race, so lots can be gained. There are umpires on the course, so you get "instant justice (tm)" instead of taking protests to the room. Idea from ISAF is that this will make it harder for a team to win the even before the last race is sailed.


Usually you will get answers to most post here, but it can take a bit of time now and then.

Bristol YC Aclass fleet does windward/leeward on Tuesday nights.

So, its pretty simple, upwind, downwind with the start line being a mark and the committee boat. The courses are short, and the race area isnt that big, so its only 2 or 3 tacks each way.

For the start, they use a system of whistles, so you dont even need a watch, you just listen for the whistles. The guy on the committee boat blows the whistle at a series of interervals, which increase as the start gets closer.

Bill

Bill-

Do you race yourself out of Bristol, if so what do you race?

Tom

I think he's asking WHY they now race windward-leward vs. the old Olympic Course (ABCACA). That changed when the Spinnaker showed up. If you have a spinnaker boat, a straight downwind leg is much more challenging than a reach to a B mark. I don't know what the A cats like to run, since they don't have kites, but in any case a leeward leg offers many more passing opportunities and is trickier than a broad reach. That's why they got rid of the triangle.

Reason : Not much happens on the reaching leg and it kills downwind tacks as you are forced to one side of the course. Pretty much alot of sailors considered the triangular course to be a race upwind followed by a parade to B and C after which the racing started again.

I too have never found the dropping of the triangular course to be a miss.

Wouter

As a little history, after the '88 Olympics the Olympic Committee was hoping to eliminate sailing. It was too expensive to put on and was not viewer friendly.
So, they asked us (RC at the Miami Olympics Regatta) to experiment with new courses. The goal was to make courses that were more interesting and exciting and that would make for good spectatorship. This was done on all the courses.
I was PRO on the Tornado course, which later encompassed the 49er as well.
We experimented with gates at the weather end, leeward end and middle of the course. It was all pretty exciting to watch by comparison to standard courses -- the weather mark was actually dangerous, but the mid gate (starting area) at least stopped the Tornadoes from banging corners both upwind and downwind.
But, eventually the mid-gate idea was dropped. Again as possible dangers.
The leeward gate was kept and is still strong and thriving. We thought ten boat lengths apart were ideal at the time. We experimented with favoring one end or another. Particularly if the left side of the course was favored, we would try favoring the right mark.
Nice part about gates is it offers a place for boats to overtake other boats. With standard port-rounded gates, technically no boat should ever pass another boat.., as long as none of the boats make a mistake. With the gate there is that opportunity.

While many of the modern, hot boats prefer Windward/Leeward courses with gates, there are still a ton of classes that prefer a triangle as well.., i.e., the Hobie 16, Wave, Laser, Sunfish, et al.

For the Tradewinds we run the faster classes on an outside course with a triangle, followed by two W/Ls. That makes for a long course for them, gets them away from classes starting after them the first time around, and offers a bit of challenge on the triangle -- we set the reaching mark at a marginal angle where the brave can fly spinnakers, some not so brave may opt for JAM. The next reaching leg is deep and definitely a spinnaker leg.

This course configuration has worked well over the last ten years or so where you have a lot of boats and a lot of different classes and speeds.

Good luck with your renewed sailing,
Rick

I have to agree with Rick, the tradewinds course is nice for the spin boats as it gets us out of the way of the slower boats. Even though some may not like being forced to one side of the course, it really does make the course safer.

Tom,
I raced twice this year out of Bristol YC, both times in June, its a very competitive fleet, and they have a good setup. About 12 boats reside at BYC and they have another group that shows up and rigs and races.

The Bristol Bay is kind of small, so the benefits are that you cant get in trouble. The launch area is a bit tight, but I think they changed the launch area for the North American's. And they have a few spots you need to watch our for rocks.

If you live close by and are looking for mast up storage, and a competitive fleet that races every week, I dont think you'll find anything better than BYC.

I wanted to do more races, but work got in the way, Tuesday's was hard and its a 2 hour commute. I've lobbied for a Sat or Sun race day, but it wasnt overwhelmingly accepted. I think the plan is to continue Tuesday nights and have few Sat or Sun as practice days.

I race a DK17 that I built myself.

Bill

Hi Group,
My son is racing an Opti in the JOB regatta. They are using the trapezoid course. Go to windward and go left ninety degrees to the reach mark,then downwind to a gate, then directly upwind to finish. After you finish bear off back to the original start.Kinda cool
Regards
Ken

The trap was also a spinoff of those day I referred to. We tried that one as well yet saw no significant reason to use it.
It was supposed to help at Savannah for the Olympics there when they combined the Tornado and Soling. They would start the Solings first on a trap course.., that supposedly got them off to the side so the Tornadoes could start.
It didn't work very well, however.
Rick