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Let’s Try a New Lake Pleasant Race Course
By Rick Johnson

I have a new campaign: to get rid of the obstruction in the middle of my race course.

This season I hollered over to anyone who’d listen that we should set the entire race course windward of the start-finish line in order to remove the start-finish as an obstruction.

That’s the way we did it at the Birthday Regatta this year and the first time I rounded a windward mark I had a totally different race course ahead. My decision wasn’t which side of the obstruction to round; it was “where are the competitors, the wind, the shifts.” For the first time, I had tactical decisions to make based on a much larger race course. I loved it, and so did some of my competitors who beat us up. But anyway, I had fun with this course.

Another aspect of the course I’d like to propose is a downwind finish. We’d finish the boats at the start-finish line, ready to go again, but keeping them out of the way of competitors still racing.

Let me describe the gist of my proposal and open a dialog about changing the course. I’d place the committee start and finish where we usually do. Set the leeward mark about 100 yards to windward of the RC boat and then set the windward mark and an offset.

Courses start at the committee boat start line. Competitors would round the windward mark and finish (or turn to round the offset mark and then finish). The leg distance can be shortened or lengthened depending on wind conditions in order to keep a typical race length at about 45 minutes.

We could also round the leeward mark to take the course twice around. I think most of us would prefer twice around a windward-leeward (or triangle) and the committee would build a course length that would allow a twice-around in the wind conditions. (Mark-rounding is a competitive part of racing just like sailing a leg of the course, so more rounding is not bad.)

On a typical Sunday morning the committee might set the course to the north. They’d have a wide arc to move the windward mark (or place the alternate green mark) in order to set a square course. The leeward mark would always be in the same place. What’s more, competitors waiting to start would be out of the race course and safer.

When we got the usual wind shift to the south, the committee would move the leeward mark south of the committee boat and set a new, south windward mark.

I recognize that this takes a runabout crew to set marks throughout the day, because we know the wind will change, but good committees do that now anyway.

We should open a dialog within the club to talk about these things, and (if people agree) change the courses in the fall. Let’s face it, if we make a change like this we will probably have to make some adjustments along the way to get it right, but I ain’t scared.