Richmond Yacht Club Midwinter #1

[ThePrincess]

Interesting racing for those who were there on Sunday. About 40 lasers signed up, with over 180 small boats total! I didn't think it was that windy, mostly nasty chop and very low temperatures. I was shocked to find out that during our one race, only three RYC crash boats were on the water, and two were having steering problems...spooky.

Thoughts?

 

[bjmoose]

Mike,

I'm not sure. These questions are never as easy as they look. First -- a clarification; were there three chase boats allocated to the Southampton area, or three chase boats TOTAL?

If it's three TOTAL that does seem kinda thin, and it's easy to say -- "Yeah, they oughta have more chase boats out there." If it's three chase boats allocated to the southampton area by itself, that seems a little more reasonable.

Naturally, more is better and safer right?

But then if we want more boats, who's going to pay for those boats, and who's going to drive them?

I assume RYC is your club. Are you willing to vote for a capital assessment to get more boats on the water?

Are you willing to give up one Saturday a season to make sure the chase boats are better maintained?

Are you willing to not sail a regatta and work RC/chase boat duty instead?

Failing that, if there's an assessment that this isn't a safe number of chase boats, are you willing to have the number of entrants in the regatta capped at some number that is determined to be safe, based on the number of chase boats that ARE available?

I'm not sure how severe the "steering problems" are as I wasn't driving the boats. But speaking for myself, if it were my club I'd at least raise that as an issue and try to get that addressed.

-SteveH