Laser slalom course

Northward

New Member
Does anyone have a diagram of the slalom course as used by SFYC? It seems as though I remember Tillman's first book in the 1970s having a slalom diagram, but I may be dreaming that part.

Thanks.
 
I have that book right here and you are dreaming, partially: it doesn't have the bird's-eye view of the San Francisco course, but it does show how to set up a small (less than 100 m long) training slalom course using a bunch of plastic bottles. There's a sideways/underwater diagram of it.

I think there is a course diagram included in the original story of the race in a 1970s issue of Yacht Racing. I'll check that next time when I get to my summer cottage sailing magazine stash. :D
 
Thanks so much. What is the recommended distance between marks? Also, and this is through the murk of time, I recall Tillman had a trash bag at the leeward end of the string of marks to keep the marks square. Is that correct? Thanks for the help, LaLi.
 
What is the recommended distance between marks?
36 feet (11 metres), which is not even three boatlengths. With seven bottles, the whole thing is less than 80 m long. Doesn't sound very useful beyond the lower end of the wind scale. (What's the highest wind you can throw two gybes within three boatlengths?)
I recall Tillman had a trash bag at the leeward end of the string of marks to keep the marks square. Is that correct?
Yes it is. I understand that he wanted to have a bigger, but still cheap everyday object as a wind vane at the end of the buoy chain.
 
Well, our little group is looking to have a heavy wind slalom at our little lake right off the club dock, making it a spectator event! The primary class at our club, the Flying Scot, doesn't sail in wind exceeding 25 mph, so the idea is to sail the Laser slalom during a FS blowout. In our neck of the woods, it can blow very hard in the spring, so that's what we're looking for. You're right that 36' between buoys isn't sufficient; however, we can certainly rectify that.

Thanks again, LaLi, for your input.
 

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