THe class has no upper or lower windspeed. But, the Wave loves heavy air. When the squall hit, I clocked the wind at 22-27 mph, which is very sailable for a Wave. Some would even say it would be desirable.
But, we sent the fleet home (properly, by the way, Matt with the correct flags -- Chip was on shore, did not see the actual flags, and gave everyone a report so you would know what was going on. You are starting to sound like the Ebert of PRO-land
)
The reason they were sent home has because of Murphy. Anything that could go wrong, would.., and did.
The start was a General Recall. No one, Including me on the port end of the line, heard the horns. And then immediately the two youth sailors capsized at the starting line. So, I was quite occupied seeing to their safety. Roots got up by himself, but Palmer did not seem to know how to right the boat. So, I spend a considerable amount of time with Palmer. We finally got the boat righted. It was then that Roots pointed out there was General.
When I got back upwind (in heavy, pounding chop, I might add) Sure enough there was a General.
Then I headed over to the reaching mark and headed off the fleet, sending them back to the starting line. Meanwhile, the reaching mark decided to head downwind and tie up near a dock.
While the boats were heading back to the start line, I retrieved the mark, added more weight to the anchor and again pounded upwind into the seas to reset the mark.
On the way back to the start line Sharon Woodruff capsized, righted, capsized, righted, capsized, etc. Skip Kaub and Jack Woehrle came to her rescue. Meanwhile her sail was getting trashed. Skip jumped aboard her boat and took the sail down, Sharon jumped (well struggled to get on Skip's boat -- Jack Woehrle jumped in and helped her get aboard, then sailed over to retreive his own boat).
Sharon's boat needed towed in and about that time, my boat, which John McKnight had borrowed lost the rig.., another towing situation.
Again, this was sailable wind, but so many things went wrong at the same time, and we were starting to run out of time for the day, so I told the PRO to send them in.
Hope that answers the blown out race report.
OK, now back to the Thrown out race.
Warren Green was the PRO and is a bit new to the game. He is extremely well intentioned. He does a great job. I was there as a mark boat and generally in charge of the regatta.
During the 4th race I told Warren that this race would be over by 3:30 and I would shorten the course up for the fifth race to get the sailors off the water shortly after four o'clock to party a bit, shower and show up for the dinner party.
Mistakenly he hoisted the Change of Course Flag and the Shortened Course Flag as the sailors were coming to the finish. I was upwind moving the marks at the time. When I got back I suggested those flags be struck, which he did. His reasoning was to let the sailors know the next race would be a course change and it would be shorter -- way TOOOOO MUUUCH information. The flags did not adversely affect the 4th race, although it could have perhaps. After all they were heading for a finish line off the starboard side of the Signal Boat, and everyone finished just fine.
But, that had planted a seed in the mind of a few sailors.
The race went off just fine and all was going well, until Steve Abbey decided mistakenly to sail directly from the reaching mark and cross the finish line upwind. (the couse designation called for a triangle, windward, and leeward, downwind finish. Nothing else).
Apparently, in a knee jerk reaction to Abbey yelling that he was finishing, Warren blew a whistle.
At that point most of the fleet were half way up to the Windward Mark. About 3 or 4 boats heard the whistle, and either came back, or hesitated. Either way, it affected the sailing.
Skip Kaub was one of those that actually came back, went through the finish line. He DID NOT get a whistle, and went on to complete the course properly.
Abbey and Kaub filed for redress.
Abbey's was denied as he did not sail the proper course.
Kaub's was accepted, but it was moot point
The race was thrown out as there was no way to determine fairly who should be in what position.
Most of the fleet were well past this fiasco and none of the top sailors would have been affected had the race been kept and random positions applied, but that was the determination made and that was what everyone had to live with.
It gravely affected the scores of Dave and Leah White. Dave had a huge lead and Leah was 3rd place. I believe Woehrle was farther back, but don't think he was affected by whistles.
So, we had Abbey starting the confusion, and Warren made the error of blowing a whistle. And I agree with not using a whistle. Without the whistle, the race would have stood and Abbey would have been disqualified.
All in all, it was a great regatta with just about every kind of wind you can imagine (the last day the wind steadily dropped to make the last race a drifter and a shortened course race -- done with the proper flags, Matt!
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