2006 World PDRacer Sailboat Championship Race - Lessons Learned
By Doug Day (retired) #1 "DUB" Here are the lessons I learned this year:Space between boats during beach start - All the other times we have had beach starts, the boats were spaced about the same as they were in this one and we launched just fine. This year we got all tangled up at the start, I think partly because the wind died causing people to loose control, plus the larger sails that were flying. In the future, we should probably have the boats on 10' centers.
Longer course - Problem was a lot of congestion, and no time to recover from mistakes. The original course would have been perfect, we had the mark way out there, but several of the participants saw Andrew get stuck at the leeward mark and a mutiny was in progress. So I agreed to move the mark closer. Next time, definitely keep the mark way out there like originally placed it, mutiny or not.
Lots spare parts, spars and boards - We usually have lots of spare parts, just want to continue to encourage everyone to bring them. Because of the spares, we were able to patch up all of the boats which had become decomissioned, so everyone could compete in the final race.
Shorten line on windward mark - The windward mark was in fairly shallow water, the line was just a little too long and it was snagged multiple times. We should shorten it's anchor line as much as possible to help keep the boards from tripping it.
Require oars - Rescuing people chews up a lot of time. Of all the boats out there, I only recall seeing 2 of them with oars, the rest were carrying a single canoe paddle or nothing. With any sort of wind, you just can't push a PD with only a canoe paddle. In any future PD event that I organize, I am going to require that everyone's boat be outfitted with oars.
I continue to like 16" sides for the bay - I was running with some small chop out there and at one point it was lifting my stern, trying to dig my bow in and submarine me like I have done before out there. With the bow transom that comes with 16" high sides, I can keep the bow from digging in.
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