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Pastimes : My House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (5326)	2/22/2003 3:07:55 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 7689

LOL! Wasn't exactly what I was after either. :-) The most nerve-wracking part of a race is the start. There is a bouyed-off rectangle whose front end is the starting line. The rectangle is the starting area. Boats can't enter the starting area until 5 minutes before their start time. That will be sounded by a gun or cannon and is their warning gun (it's the previous class's starting gun). The boats about to start mill around inside the starting area, trying to time their tacks and downwind runs to hit the starting line right at the starting gun with full speed and clear wind. (Actually, the start class isn't restricted to just the starting area; they can sail wherever they want. Other classes are barred from it until their warning gun, though. One of my common starting techniques was to get up to the line, then head off on a timed run out of the starting area on a beam reach, turn around, and head back. If done right, you hit the starting line right at the starting gun.) Unfortunately the line is always too short for everyone to get through at once. It's like a dozen people trying to get through an ordinary door at the same time- -except these aren't people, these are elephants. Even if the line weren't too short, one end or the other will be favored, meaning it will be the shortest route to the first mark. So almost everybody would try for that end. The effect tends to be like a traffic jam where everyone is doing 65 mph. And the consequences of mistakes can be the same. Man, I HATE starts!