Maxprop wrote:
Isn't it contingent upon the race committee to cancel a race when such
conditions are present?
Not at all.
Maxprop wrote:
You should know by now that I'm not in favor of the nanny principle, either
in race committes or government.
Well, then why do you speak up in favor of the Race
Committee acting like a nanny?
.... But you should also know that nationally
and internationally ranked sailors won't pass up the opportunity to sail in
their respective Worlds, even when conditions are poor.
Baloney. Nobody, no matter how intensely competitive they
are, wants to die... or lose crew, either from death,
serious injury, or just saying "I'm not sailing with you
crazy MF-ers ever again." Nobody wants to break expensive
gear, and by the time most sailors reach this level of
competition, they are aware that breaking stuff is slow.
The prudent thing to do would be to delay or reschedule in order to prevent
the sort of losses the Soling Worlds experienced.
If you need a nanny, sure.
Let's check the report from that regatta ans see how many of
the racers spoke up in favor of the Race Committee
cancelling races so that they don't have to be responsible
for themselves.
I never said they were responsible for broken gear or, in a worst-case
scenario, dead sailors. Each skipper is. But such occurrences could be
prevented by the RC. As I stated above, top sailors typically won't make
the tough decision to take a pass
The heck they won't.
Part of the situation here is that conditions went from bad,
but raceable, to barely survivable. By the time each
individual skipper came to the decision to shift from "race"
to "survival" to "let's get the heck out of this, if
possible," it was too late to do anything except try to
avoid casualty... unsuccessfully, in some unfortunate cases.
Any racer with some years experience will have gotten into
weather situations that forced priority over racing tactics.
Any *sailor* will recognize that threshold as it approaches,
in many cases while still standing on the dock.
There's too much at stake, such as their jobs with sailmakers, etc. So the
RC is in the perfect position to prevent the sort of things that happened at
the Soling Worlds. They failed to exercise their option, IMO.
Again... you claim that you're against nanny-ism but here
you are insisting it should be done. One of the most glaring
reasons why you are neither conservative nor libertarian is
that you cannot stick to your principles.
Actually, I'm impressed that these guys managed to get things back
together & make it back to the club. Higher caliber than the average club
racer.
Indeed. But then survival is typically the #1 motivator.
Not only that, but getting back to the dock uninjured & with
minimum breakage puts one into a more advantageous situation
the next day of racing.
It's also a good lesson on why one-design racing sails may be fast, but
not really suitable for other uses. Unless you want a self-removing jib
Sails present interesting dilemmas. I put some heavy-weather sails on our
Snipe for the North Americans at San Diego for the second race back in the
early 70s. We had placed 2nd in the first, but the wind was expected to
freshen to well over 18kts. by the middle of the second race. To make a
long story short, the skies cleared and the wind ebbed, and we were unable
to keep any shape in the main at all, thanks to the rolling sea conditions.
We'd planned to make that our throwout. Of course for the third race we
went back to our lightest Dacron and the wind topped out at 20kts. just
before our jib ripped from the luff wire. The rest of the series went about
like that, always choosing the wrong sails for the conditions. I left SD
hating Mission Bay and its arcane winds. We finished 39th overall--our
worst in five years.
Ah yes, memories of the bad old days when you had to pick
your sails as carefully as any other move on the race
course. And it was worse with cotton! But the last couple of
decades have seen huge improvement, generally most small
one-designs have a single pattern sail set, or maybe a
special jib (in the Lightnings for example, they use a "wave
jib" for light air & chop but otherwise just one main & one
jib). Of course, that sail set still isn't going to be
infinitely tune-able as the wind climbs over 20 or 30... by
the time it hits 40, very few boats are even sailing much
less racing.
It's happened to me that we've done quite well in some races
by playing chicken as conditions worsened, capsizing less
often than the leaders and passing them while they were
swimming... or just jogging along in survival mode and
arriving at the final beat with some strength left and gear
unbroken, and getting a place score instead of a DNF.
I love it when the wind blows like double-stink, and IMHO if
the RC cancels a race in conditions where I am more likely
to do well, then my score is being prejudiced. I don't need
a nanny, and don't want one on the race course.
DSK