GBCA Discussion Forum

The club handicap times are updated for Rum Race #2.

Have a good day out there!

Results for Rum Race #1 are posted.
http://www.gbca.org:80/resources/Documents/2015%20Rum%20Series%20Results.pdf

A reminder that the cruising club class(Orange flag) must also report their times as well as the first five finishers. Thank you to those who did!
At the party we did not get anyone who provided a list of the first five finishers in this class. Granted, the conditions were not optimal and many did not finish, however non of the top finshers provided finish times for anyone other than themselves.

The times reported for the club handicap were:
Name      finish
Escondido   20:06:00
Lil Bit a Sol   170   20:13:50
Tri'd N' True   35   20:25:15
Amore   224   20:25:48
Second Wind   259   20:37:21
Sunspot Baby   159   20:46:10
knot on call   166   20:46:50
Reflection   242   20:54:19

GBCA TMCA Spring Fling Offshore race competitors,

Revision 2 of the Sailing Instructions are posted at this location:
https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/regatta_uploads/9880/2015GBCATMCASpringFlingOffshoreSIs.pdf

You are responsible for downloading the electronic version and reviewing it, and printing it if desired prior to the race.

As indicated in the previous message, there will be four pursuit starts instead of one. The base starting time will remain 05:00:00. Offset times for boats in each class will be taken from the yacht with the largest handicap rating in that class, rather than the entire racing fleet. The intention is to start more yachts earlier, and allow the possibility of more yachts to reach the destination before dark. Note that this is an intention, not a guarantee.

A suggestion was made to move the starting location to mark 6A Rather than Mark 11. This suggestion is deemed impractical for Race Committee logistics.

Competitors are reminded of Racing Rule of Sailing 4:
"DECISION TO RACE
The responsibility for a boat?s decision to participate in a race or to
continue racing is hers alone."

Thank you again for entering; may the winds be favorable.
Bob Hunkins, PRO

TMCA/GBCA Spring Fling racers:
The winds this Friday are predicted to be 9kts and building, from the East going to South East. But that of course may change.

It has been rightly pointed out to me that for the boats starting later, even though they are supposedly faster, will still have difficulty getting to Pleasure Island or Sabine before dark.

A solution to this is to break up the pursuit starts so that each fleet starts based on the largest handicap in each fleet, as opposed to the largest handicap of all yachts sailing. This will allow us to compress the amount of time needed to get everyone started and yet maintain the pursuit start paradigm. Hopefully, this will allow more boats to arrive before dark.

I will publish a change to the Sailing Instructions as soon as practical and advise everyone at that time.

To determine your starting time (for planning purposes) use the following formula:

seconds = 55.27 X (MAX-PHRF)
MAX: Largest PHRF rating in your fleet (PHRF Spin, PHRF Non-Spin, GBCA Cruising, TMCA)
PHRF: Your rating.
seconds: time after initial start in seconds.

Your start time: 05:00:00 + seconds.

I will publish appropriate starting tables in the SI amendment.

Please let me know if there are questions.
Regards,
Bob Hunkins, PRO

Thanks for catching that, Bee.  I do believe it was a finger slip.

Sabine pass marker 27 as listed in the original SIs is incorrect.

The corrected position to be placed in the SI's is:
N29deg 41.358'
W093deg 50.319'

I will update the SI copy online when I have access to the original files later this week.
An official notice has been posted on the online notice board
https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_notice_board.php?regatta_id=9880

It's that time of the year again! The 2015 Rum Races, sponsored by Cruzan Rum are coming!
Thanks to Cruzan for the sponsorship of our most popular racing series!

This will serve as a virtual Skippers' meeting.

The Sailing Instructions are posted here:
https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/regatta_uploads/2575/2015RumRaceSI.pdf

Changes from last year (noted as blue text in the SI's):

1. The rules about luffing other boats STILL APPLIES, but it note that it does not apply at rounding marks. The normal RRS of sailing apply here. (Refer to the three boat length zone)
Bottom line- Play nicely with each other, don't force anyone into a steel and concrete range mark and don't hit anyone, (or anyone's boat.)

2. Mark J is still gone, (much in the way that Francisco Franco is still dead). We noted that mark M54 has a large pipe protruding above the water (sometimes) in the area and mark M53 that we used for The Conundrum is missing. So, we are using Mark M55. We verified its location during the womens' regatta a few weeks ago. If it has gone missing since then or goes missing, yachts will round the coordinates given in the SI's.

3. The Starting time is moved up one hour, to 3:30:00 pm for boats with a 285 rating. All others move up by the time calculated from a 14.4 mile course. The course distance has lengthened and we think that moving the starting time earlier will allow people to get to the festivities in a more timely fashion. Last finish time of 21:00 is the same as last year.

4. The bearings and distances to the M55 mark from E and Channel mark 2 are, of course, different.

Other things to be reminded of:
- All boats must fly a flag to be scored. (white, dark, white over dark or orange)

-All Cruising Club class boats must hand in their finish times recorded to the second after the race, either on paper or electronically to me rdhunkins(at)verizon(dot)net.
-Cruising Club handicap fleet boats will have their ratings adjusted based on their finishing times for each race. I hope no one will try to sandbag: You are expected to sail as well as possible.

- The first boat to finish in each of the five classes must record their finish and the next four finishers, and turn those into me or one of the other club officers at the clubhouse afterwards.
- If the first place boat does not turn in the finishes, They will be disqualified and ineligible for a prize and points. The second place boat must then turn in the times, and so on. If you are not first, it's a good idea to note the your finish time, and the finisher ahead and behind you so you can still get prizes in case the first place finisher fails to do his duty.

That's it. I'm looking forward to seeing you all out there! Here's to summer time!

-Bob Hunkins, 2015 Fleet Captain

We plan to start the race at 05:00:00. We need to start early enough so that boats will have a chance to finish at a reasonable time.
The largest handicap at this time is 301. The smallest is 33.
The formula to calculate the start time on a handicap is:
seconds =55.27x(301-R), where R is the rating and seconds is the amount of seconds after 5:00:00AM.
To find your time, add the seconds to 05:00:00.

This will be in a list of all competitors provided with the Sailing Instructions for tomorrow's meeting, at GBCA 7:00pm sharp.

Hope that helps.
-Bob

Can anyone recommend a good fuel polishing/fuel tank cleaning service in the area?

No official times yet, but from some back of the envelope calculations, slower boats would need to start fairly early, (0500 ish) order to get there at a reasonable time.

I hope to get something more concrete later this week.

Thanks for the feedback, well, the serious feedback... :-)

My plan is to NOT have a pursuit start, but instead have the standard 5 minute sequence (RRS rule 26) start for all fleets, i.e. Cruising Club Handicap , PHRF Spin and PHRF non-Spin.... BTW, non spin sailors, please sign up! We need more of you!

The Cruising Club fleet, being in general not partial to windward/leeward courses will sail fixed mark courses to be detailed at the skippers' meeting and in the sailing instructions.
The PHRF spin and Non-Spin boats will sail Windward/Leeward courses with dropped marks.

I plan to start the Cruising Club handicap fleet first, then the PHRF boats. I hope to get in two races for the Cruising club Handicap and as many as I can get for the PHRF fleets.

So please come out!
-Bob

Question for the Women's Regatta Skippers -
It's not practical from an RC standpoint to run two different courses, a windward leeward course and a fixed mark pursuit start course.
So the question is:
Which course would you prefer:

A. Fixed marks, and a pursuit start, similar to the icicle and Rum races, but with a RC boat taking finishers and watching for Over early boats.
OR
B. Dropped marks, windward/leeward course, and the more usual 5 minute start sequence.

Please let me know by replying to this thread!

Thanks,
Bob Hunkins

On consideration, I would like to have the ability to postpone if necessary rather than be forced to abandon in the event a storm comes through at a bad time.

If the weather looks questionable, please monitor VHF channel 69. If we postpone the RC will announce it over VHF.

Postponements will be in increments of 1 hour. Starting time will be adjusted accordingly, so for example if we postpone hour, you will add one hour to your start time.

Finish cut off time will also be adjusted accordingly.

Sailing Instruction are here:
https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/regatta_uploads/10090/2015ConundrumSIs.pdf

If the Race Committee feels we are endangered by going out then we will abandon.
We will broadcast on VHF 69, and post on the regatta network notice board for this race.

All racers are reminded of RRS: Decision to Race, "The responsibility for a boat's decision to participate in a race or to continue racing is hers alone."

If you decide NOT go out on the water tomorrow due to weather conditions you feel are unsafe, please contact us on VHF 69, or leave a message at 281-216-4082.

All of this is covered in SI 12, now posted.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will sail!

Bill, you are correct. In the past the GBCA portion of the results for the Navy Cup came from Texas Race Week. GBCA is not doing that this year. Instead, we are having our offshore races in two separate events: The first is the Spring fling Offshore regatta from Galveston to Sabine on May 22nd, the second is on September 26th, and 27th. Details on that are still being worked out so I won't go into it more right now.

It is required to enter all four races to qualify for the Navy Cup, but the poorest score for each boat entering will be dropped. So if a boat cannot participate in all four, then there is a throwout.