I love racing, but I'm tired of going in circles

Reaching by itself is just drag racing: the fastest and the one windward wins, so, to my opinion it is not enough to make a good race. but, a dose of reaching can be good: what about the good old olympic course with three marks(ABCACA)? I like this one: a lot of downwind/upwind plus the mandatory jibe at the B mark which make things very exciting (plus the fact that with a spin you have to deal with wind angles through the B mark: can be pretty difficult if windy). I would like ro races these.

I couldn't agree more. What ever happened to using B mark? AC, ACAC, ACACAC, ACA......boring......bring back the reaches. When I used to race in the 80's, that was the most exciting part of the race, and can be very tactical as well. It isn't necessarily the fastest boat that gets from A to B. It can also be the one that positions himself the best or uses the rules to his/her advantage. I feel removing the B mark did more harm than good.

I was at a race earlier this year where they finally did use a B mark and many people were confused by this and didn't know how to sail it. It was actually funny listening to the comments on the beach. "Wow, I never used a B mark before, that was kind of fun". "How did X boat catch up to me so much on that reach?" Gee, imagine a change from the standard sausage courses being fun.

I concur with Jim's sentiments about the ease of setup and poor excuses for not using another mark. I would also recommend putting this mark closer to shore so people on shore have something to watch.

There are many more variations of courses simply by adding another mark, AC stuff gets old after a while.

Kip Taylor

The Dalles, OR.....soon to be Boise!

TheMightyHobie18

I agree 100%. There is a group of us catsailors that go to Pace Bend Park every full moon weekend and we spend most of our time manuvering for a long reach run. It's fun, it's exciting and the land lubbers seem very interested when we come screeching by on a reach close to shore. Reaching is where, in my mind, the cat's full speed potential comes alive and it makes my heart thump. I love it! If it is a mixed regatta(mono's and cat's), maybe us cat sailors could solicit the race commitee beforhand and get a B mark for the cat class.

Don Caldwell

Supercat-20

Nacra 18 Square

A race is supposed to test a sailors ability on all points of sail. A reach just so happens to be one of those points of sail. The olympic course is the best in my mind, Triangle windward leeward finish downwind. This course is low maintenance for RC as the pin end of the line can be the leeward mark. Anyone that has sailed with a wing mark can attest, some pretty hairy stuff happens when you are stacked three or four deep, cruising at mach 6, and all have to gybe to round the mark...ROOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!! I vote wing mark!

I 100% disagree. A reaching mark makes everyone go the same way on the course. Where can you put time on the boats behind you? A windward leward course opens up the whole course to you. I like to add one reaching leg at a weekend race. It's nice for the fun factor but not the true racing. Also under porthmouth ratings, it can mess up the results when spinnaker and non-spinnaker boats are racing.

I had the Area A US sailing rep intenionaly move a "B" mark around till it was too high to fly a spinnaker to the mark and too high to fly a spinnaker to "C". Well my rating is calulated on using the spinnaker 50% of the time. He was trying to favor the course to favor the 6.0's. When I asked him about it he admited he was trying to use the "B" mark so I couldn't fly the spinnaker on the reach or after I rounded B.

We also had a bad collision at B mark this year. There are two proper courses at B. One is to jibe at the mark the other is to continue by the mark. This has caused a serious accident this year. It would be wiser to put the engery into a offset mark instead of a reaching mark.

Reach around in between races or after racing is over.

I agree with Barry on this one.

I also think that it shows little knowledge of tactical racing to put a Wing mark, gybe mark, B mark on the first lap of a race course. we all know that the pecking order is established primarily on the first leg, putting a reach mark immediately after the First weather mark just solidifies this order.

Put the reach leg on the second lap.

Another problem w/B marks is that often RC's set them at the incorrect angle giving you 2 legs in which to parade around on. Make sure that at least one of your reaches is high enough to be fast & hairy.

Just one opinion from someone who stopped racing because of the windward-leeward courses.

Multihulls are made to have the most fun while reaching. Not designing a course to enjoy the boats' reason for being is kinda nutty. Maybe there is too much emphasis on including use of spinnakers. I like the old cat sailors' definition of a spinnaker: a sail for occupying a lot of time while going very slowly (hence, the use of the "B" mark and no self respecting cats had spinnakers.)

So, I stopped racing my last cat years ago when the catamaran courses started looking exactly like the monohull courses. We had these little Ferraris in the water but we were racing on courses suited to lumbering Cadillacs. It didn't, it doesn't, make much sense but because of that the spinnakers became prevalent.

I think it killed a lot of the speed thrill when the reaching died. It was like eliminating the long straight in front of the grandstand in a Forumula 1 race.

Does making a course that says, "this course does not include the fastest point of sail for the boat" make sense?

I've seen Rick White request that a B mark be added close, but not too close, to the A mark (say 50 - 75 yards). While it doesn't give you a very long reaching leg, it does clear up all the clutter at the A mark on a crowded course or when you have boats with large differences in speed. You still get a belly full of downwind tactics and a reaching leg to satisfy the speedsters.

that has been borrowed from monohull sailing, mostly larger boats where there is alot of messing with spin poles and gear.

It is a good idea, as you say in large fleets. It is also a nice safety feature to keep boats from bearing away into any boats coming in on Kamikaze port.

It has also been added to the US sailing Multihull course card with the designation as "course #" followed by an O

I think that you can get your fill of reaching in distance racing

I like the offset mark.

It helps to keep the windward and leward boats farther apart and makes the A mark a much safer rounding especially when spinnaker boats are racing.

And when it is blowing like stink and you come into A mark with a hull flying, you get a whole new kind of thrill as you round down.

I believe the offset mark has been added to the NAHCA course card. As far as I can recall, a course card change hasn't been brought up at any of the multihull meetings. The use of an offset mark could be addressed in the sailing instructions if the US SAILING course card is used.

Gordon Isco

I'm a little confused by Barry's statement here:

"Where can you put time on the boats behind you?"

What does that have to do with the course? Tactics are a way to put time between you and the next boat. Just by opening up the course, that doesn't give an advantage to any one boat or type of boat. The way to put time between you and your competitor is to sail fast, use the rules and tactics. It doesn't matter which course you are sailing, the object is to get to the finish the fastest.

Unless I'm missing something??

The B mark is a part of NAHCA course sticker. The race where we did have a B mark was an area championship. I was just surprised more people hadn't raced with one. I strongly feel a B mark should be in every race, whether it is on every lap or not. It just adds a little something extra to the race and gets away from strictly upwind or downwind.

Sail safe and fast,

Kip

TheMightyHobie18

Modified olympic is my vote. A course featuring beat reach reach beat run beat makes it a well balanced race course IMHO.

I've raced enough monodulls in my short life to know first hand how annoyed skippers of particular boats get when the RC runs nothing but windward lewards. Modified olympic makes it a race for both the reachers and the runners

Cats being a reaching kind of boat, why not throw in an afterburner igniting leg or two?

Several of the W-L-only crowd have pointed out the inherent dangers of a gibe mark (B) being placed at end of an extremely fast reaching leg. I think this is a valid concern, and needs to be addressed by the reachers among us.

There is an excellent solution for this one. The reaching mark, or "B" mark, doesn't necessarily have to be at the "top" or windward end of the course. I've been to several regattas where the "B" mark is set at the leeward end of course. The advantage here is obvious for beach regattas with a typical afternoon sea breeze - the reaching leg is close to shore, and is easier for spectators to see the fastest leg of the race. I think this course configuration also eliminates any of the concern about high speed reaching boats coming into a mark where some boats may want to jibe, some may not. Since the "B" mark is at the leeward end of the course, all boats are essentially sailing downwind to it. And, at the end of the high speed reaching leg, boats aren't turning as sharply around the leeward mark (C mark), they're just sheeting in & hardening up to the wind, maybe tacking.

Now I just had a flashback - I remember a regatta in the 80s where we had a quadrilateral shaped course - it had a reaching leg at top of course, and one at bottom of course. 4 marks to round for one lap. Does anyone else have experience with this confiuration? I think it may have been an experiment in 89-92 timeframe by US Sailing for performance dinghy type of races.

The course we had this year had the B mark at the leeward end of the course. As mentioned, this did eliminate confusion and forced you to make a good C mark rounding unless you wanted to lose a few positions.

I thought it worked well and it was readily apparent who spent time reaching and who didn't. There were several tigers at the race who used the chutes to B, then doused them for the reach to C. Good action, fun to watch and even more entertaining to be amongst.

Kip

The Dalles, OR....soon to be Boise!

"Where can you put time on the boats behind you?"

Let me explain

Adding a reaching mark causes all of the boats on the course to saill the same way. They will all sail the same triangle. Where are the tactics in that other than trying to get clean air. Boats rarely pass eath other on reaches, from my personal experience.

By forcing all of the boats to sail the same triangle there are more risks for contact with other boats.

Also all the boats are sailing the same line so it is harder to pass boats, even slower ones.

Opening up the course doesn't give any boat an advantage but give you options. If you competor is on top of you can can jibe away. Can't do that on an ABC course.

Barry, you keep contradicting yourself. You say on a triangle, or on a reaching leg, the only tactic is "trying to get clean air". Then you say on an "open course (WL I assume), "if a competitor is on top of you, you can jibe away". Isn't this the definition of "trying to get clean air? Your logic is a bit twisted , I think.

Tactics are tactics, regardless. Skill at sailing a reach is still sailing skill. If you can't seem to pass anyone on a reach, maybe you just need more practice. I know I do.

The Portsmouth numbers are derived from actual data, and one of the listed assumptions on page

http://www.ussailing.org/portsmouth/index.htm

reads as follows : "boats have in almost all documented cases sailed on courses including the three basic sailing angles: beating, reaching and running". If you know this has not been the case with races where someone has reported data to the Portsmouth Committee, you need to be sure that it is noted with the data.

A lot of the negative comments about B mark concerns the angle it is set at relative to A (or C, if it is at leeward end of course). This can be addressed at a club, division, fleet or class level by documenting the correct shape of the course in some kind of RC manual. In years past, the Tornado class rules actually mentioned a 70-90 degree angle when describing the preferred race course. Just as windhsifts can ruin a perfectl good WL course, same can happen to a reaching leg. But at least there can be guidance to RC about the desired position of the mark, relative to wind direction.

I don't think you understand what I am trying to say. Lets just say you are on your 5.5 and I am on My Nacra 20. We are doing an ABC course. You are in the first start and I am in the third start. I get to A mark with you right in front of me. We are now heading on a reach. I am going a little bit faster that you are but there in no way you are going to let me roll you to windward. Now I spend the whole leg trying to break through your leeward. Is this tactics? I can't jibe away. I am stuck there. The fastest boat rarely wins races it's the boat that sail the fastest around the course that wins. How does this add to the quality of racing?

Lets just say at the Alter cup this year (all same boats and same speeds) sail an ABC course and then an ACA course.

Which race will have the most passing and lead changes? Have you ever been in a race where the wind shifted right before the start and it turn out to be a reach up and down the courses? What happens when the race is run? I have found in one design racing that the boats finish in basically the same order they rounded A the first time around. It happened at the Spring Fever Regatta this year. If we were on the same type of boat and were on a reach I will bet you would pass me if I were ahead. I would not let you by even if you were going faster. I would just keep in between you and the next mark and that is it. If you hit me from behind you will be off doing some turns. I agree if the reaching mark is set it should be set to leeward.

At this year Performance NA they had a few reaching legs. It did add some excitement because it was so windy but it didn't add to the racing overall. I didn't pass anyone and no one passed me. We all just followed each other and were all forced to sail the left side of the course.

I guess we are just at different racing levels.

Actually, Barry, I did know exactly what you were getting at, I just wanted you to come out & say it. You did a pretty good job describing your frustration with reaching legs.

I'm not sure why you think fighting for clear air, finding a way to use waves to your advantage, and the heightened concentration & boathandling which is necessary on reaching legs is not a gratifying part of catamaran racing for you. There are windshifts, and changes in velocity on reaching legs, just like on windward or downwind legs. Anticipating and handling these windshifts & waves, are all parts of the tactics of getting your boat to go faster than your opponent. And they are a hell of a lot more fun.

You may be right, you may be racing at a "level" that is different than what I'm racing at. Perhaps there is a place for W-L only races - one-design fleet racing at the championship level, or match racing. But at open regattas, where the (stated or unstated) goals are increasing participation and attracting new participants to our sport, W-L only courses are a losing proposition. Our sport has lost many potential participants, because we have abandoned parts of the sport that are fun. I think we can have fun & good racing at the same time. Reaching legs.

Don't forget that while you are busy to prevent somebody to pass on windward by luffing, some others can pass you on leeward as you deviate from the normal course. That makes another tactic choice.

Our Fleet chooses courses based on the wind direction to try to get as much W-L in as possible, not always perfect because we use existing nav and other club's marks. I'm usually disappointed if we can't get a mostly W-L course. It's just more interesting to me as far as competing goes - there's far more that needs to be considered - what side of the course, who to cover, etc. in addition to keeping the boat speed up and playing the conditions/waves/wind, and getting the tacks and jibes (nothing better than good fast jibe...) right or at least better than the other guys. And yes, there's tactics on all points of sail, but I think there's more on W-L course. We do reaching legs sometimes to get to where we'll do W-L laps, sometimes we feel the need to air it out and just drag race (reach) for a course, and sometimes conditions change on the course and things end up as reaches. And reaches are fun, don't get me wrong, but for me it makes for less interesting racing, and doesn't do much for overall skill building. It is probably more interesting for spectators. We just got done with 26 Tuesdays worth of racing in which we attempted to make the courses mostly W-L (not perfect, and our start line is usally heavily biased...), I still prefer it, and our record attendance for our Fleet shows that emphasis is not turning people away.

Although I do like the potential for a good finish for myself when the course has more reaching - I think the performance differences between boat designs goes away to a large degree and boats like mine can make great use of their rating when a decent amount of jib-reaching occurs. I feel a little bad for some of the boats in this case, as I think the W-L advantages in some of the newer designs (reflected in their ratings) go away somewhat in those conditions.

It's interesting that some say W-L is a monohull thing. All boats perform better on a beam reach - the beam reach was taken out of the mono courses for same reason - it didn't add much to the racing even if it was fun. I like to tell monohullers that we try to do W-L as much as possible, because they don't believe that we can sail upwind - the reaction is almost always the same.

My $0.02, for whatever it's worth...

Another point about the PN being based on ABC courses is the (relative) advantage spi boats have over sloop (and especially unirig) boats in a leeward (particularly straight leeward) leg. Since we all (at least seem to) agree that reaching speeds are relatively close regardless of boat, by eliminating this leg and the time that would be spent on it and incorporating only W-L courses, boats with spis will gain an advantage over those without if raced against each other on PN's. As for opportunites for boat contact, IMO there are far more in a straight W-L course since you have boats coming upwind from both sides AND downwind from both sides crossing in the middle. At least on an ABC course the downwind boats tend to be to one side of the course. As to tactics- a spi equipped boat is much better off by carrying high above the B mark, even "leading" some poor non-spi boat up high to "block" it since when they finally turn down the spi boat will do much better getting the distance back- So simply stay high around A if coming in behind a bunch of "slower", non-spi boats and pass them fairly high to windward setting your spi "early" even and blast down to C.

Kirt

Jim

If sailing just isn't much fun anymore I sugest you add a spinnaker to your boat. You won't need a YA Hoo leg to add excitment. EVERY downwind leg is that way for me. Plain and simple. I go upwind just to be able to go downwind. I have hit speeds in the high 20s in a race this year. What more can I ask for? I have been racing spinnaker catamarans arond the bouys since 94. That was before it was cool. My first boat was a spinnaker boat (Hobie 21). I will never race any cat without one. I have introduced many people to spinnakers including Tom Korz who posted above.

Just add a spinnaker and you will be opened up to a whole new world. Every down wind leg will be just like a reach.

Jacques:

I didn't say anything about luffing. You just block their lane. I don"t think a boat to leeward will be able to sail through the wind shadow of two boats one behind the other.

Barry, my original post went on & on about how much fun sailing & racing is for me, *except* for when I race W-L only courses. I don't need to have a spinnaker to have fun on my boat, I have plenty of fun on my boat in whatever configuration it is - unirig solo, unirig with a couple of kids, sloop solo, sloop with crew, or spi (soon). When I get a spinnaker, I may mind the W-L only courses less, but that doesn't mean it's right for the majority of the non-spi racers that we have in catamarans.

Jim and Don,

Why didn't you request a reaching leg at Centerboard? The mark was set. The PRO said you didn't want one unless the wind was over 12?

Spinakerjohn (w/o spin)

Wrong info you got there. When I was asked which if the 3 courses in the SIs we would prefer, I said we didn't prefer triangle or "gold cup" (Olympic) Olympic course *if* it was going to be a 45-90-45 shape like they usually set up for the dinghies. I said if they did want to send us on a triangle course, to set the reaching mark high, like 90 degrees. Never said anything about wind speed. Turns out they never used those courses all weekend, anyway, so they could have placed itthe reaching mark correctly for cats without bothering the dinghies.
When I did RC in the past for this type of mixed regatta, we wrote SIs to have completley different reaching marks for the dinghies vs cats, (e.g. yellow tetrahedrons vs orange balls).

Barry,

Hit the nail on the head.

"If sailing just isn't much fun anymore I sugest you add a spinnaker to your boat. You won't need a YA Hoo leg to add excitment. EVERY downwind leg is that way for me."

I use to own a Nacra 5.8 and loved the blast reaches. Now I own a Tornado with a kite and love the down winds even more.

All you Reachers out there, give a kite a go. Nothing like going balls out on a big downwind running one on the wire with the kite up. We start to pull a wire when the wind gets to about 15 knots.

Personaly, my favorite course would have to be a windward/leward with a clearing mark set at 90 degrees and about 10 boat lengths away from the A mark. This alows you to round the top mark hull in the air and keep it there until you reach the clearing mark. During this short reach the crew can go in and make all the necessary adjustments before hoisting the kite as we exit the reach. It is also safer to get clear of the upwind sailors and gives you a bit more room to gybe staight away if you wish and cut through those still coming upwind.

I also like a gate at the bottom mark to give you more options as to which way to round and what side of the course you would like to go to. If you only have a rounding mark at the bottom, sailors (unless one side of the course is heavly favoured) will tend to go to the starbourd side of the course on a port course so to minimise lost time in tacks.

Whilst I still love a good old long blast reach, I find this course the most challenging, exciting and enjoyable.

Stephen Medwell
Team Tornado 'ALIVE'
AUS-260
www.tornadoalive.com

Yea, I got it wrong. But that's what we get when a J24 sailor is setting the courses.

John Howard
F25c #24

a little off topic, but I have a question.... when I'm racing against my monohull brethren, they always get pissed off when I fly a hull over the mark 😛

Is that legal?