Last year I found it easily:




This year I had no idea where it was:



From these I'd say that it was where it always was, but the wind was more south than last time.

I followed the sails- saw a glint of a boats windscreen, looked harder and saw the kite over top of it. It was a loooooonnnngggg way that leg!!. Crash tacked around it, waterstarted for the umpteenth time and then I looked for the pub- beer smells steered me across the finish.

I thought it could have been due to someone typing in the wrong number into a GPS, but now it doesn't look like it:



(pin position taken from people who sent in their GPS tracks)

Interestingly the distance between 2010 and 2011 is exactly one nautical mile.

How I missed that boat completely when I was so close to it is a mystery.

Looking at my tracks i didn't sail far enough, combined with large swells it was hard to see much. It's think i must have thought i was further out than i thought as by the look of other sailors tracks i was pretty close. Spewing i should have kept going.

What i want to know is, what the hell was a largish (yellow) boat hanging around where you would expect the marker boat to be(the one i gybed around)to be.

Lastly why the hell did they change the position of the last boat from where it has alway s been???

I now feel as though i have cheated in claiming i have finished the race

yep i found it.
I also know a number of ppl in front of me skipped the mark and still claimed a finish.

How's this for an idea: ditch the idea of having to round marks, and make it a point-to-point race. Ledge to Lancelin, as quick as you can, by any route.

This would reward those that can point deeper.

Could use the cray boats as an outer boundary to stop people doing the race on 2 tacks.

nebbian said...

Interestingly the distance between 2010 and 2011 is exactly one nautical mile.

1 Nm equals 1 minute of a degree.........could the last marker have been mistakenly set that one minute of a degree difference to the west (although looking at the marker positions it appears west north west of the 2010 mark).

I'd hate to have thought I'd done it too only to find out later that I had missed the final mark.

I thought each marker boat checked off the sail numbers that rounded them to confirm that the correct course was sailed by competitors.
This was obviously not the case and the event organisers are now relying solely on the Blue chip electronic timers to confirm start and finish. Not very reliable it would seem.
Bit of a bugger for those who sailed so much further to complete the course properly.
Well done to Dansy for pulling out after he realised that he did not round the last boat.

Just spoke to the race director, he was aware that the last mark was well offshore from where it should have been, but was only made aware of this after it was too late.

So it was where it was due to a mistake... he did indicate that in previous years it was a bit closer to shore compared to where it should have been, and this year it was too far offshore.

He's got no way of knowing who rounded it, and indicated that people wouldn't get disqualified if they didn't round it.


Of course if you're one of the top ten then it would be pretty obvious if you took a short cut... but then again if you're in the top ten you've got a helicopter to follow!


I'm amazed at how well organised the whole thing is, and the way that they can say for certain that all sailors have been accounted for. I tip my hat to all the organisers, job well done

DL said...

How's this for an idea: ditch the idea of having to round marks, and make it a point-to-point race. Ledge to Lancelin, as quick as you can, by any route.

This would reward those that can point deeper.

Could use the cray boats as an outer boundary to stop people doing the race on 2 tacks.

Sounds interesting... but imagine the collisions you end with as people gybe all over the place - it would be chaotic. I'd go in it