PSA Sailing
A Word about the Race to Rock Hall Finish Line:
Yes, there was definitely a problem with the Finish. We apologize for that.
In 40 years of racing on the bay, I have never had another, completely different, club and race event set up on the same government mark. It led to some confusion and, due to their relative proximity, it made it impossible to reduce scope and do a better job of squaring our finish line.
To top things off, at 14:03:08, a blue hulled Sabre 38 named FLOW crossed our finish line, sail number 93405.
You can probably guess at our confusion level was at that point, because the name on the transom matched our Entry List, FLOW, but the sail number, 93405, did NOT!
So we sat back and said, "We'll figure this out later."
When the almost same LOA, blue-hulled, Sabre named FLOW, sail number 50366, finished at 15:20:20, we were absolutely beside ourselves with confusion. It wasn't until we went back and did a full review of the FINISH that we figured the first blue hulled Sabre was maybe not a part of our racing fleet?
Bulls-eye! It was a CYC boat. See attached screen capture and here is the URL to their club and their results page:
https://corinthianyachtclub.clubhouseonline-e3.com/2024_Fall_Cruise_Rock_Hall
I mean, WHAT ARE THE ODDS!!!??? Two, blue, relatively same sized Sabres named FLOW finishing at the same mark in different races sponsored by different clubs?
WIth regard to the red "W" and not a green "W" at the finish mark. We got to the mark, "W", Green C "1," we saw a lot of traffic coming from the north, headed south, in the fairway around Swan Point Shoal, so we decided we would not anchor in the channel/fairway.
One boat headed south was a huge motor yacht, easily 70 - 80 feet and we did not want our racers contending with stuff like that in the channel, while trying to tack up to a finish at a government mark. So we anchored outside the channel on the other side of "W." That was a mistake but it was done with prudence and the safety of our racers in mind.
We hope you had an enjoyable day and we apologize for any confusion you may have experienced at the finish line.
