Where do you stand on this touchy R/C issue?
So the grand poohbah of our little Dogpatch Wednesday night sailing club sent this out to his master email list. Note the last sentence. This is the entirety of the message, the ellipsis replace any personal identifying information. I am not participating in the current series. Nor was I involved with the RC last evening. I’m really just curious how others might react to receiving something like this:
I’ve had a number of complaints on last nights RC. Horns going off late, horns going off out of sequence with the flags, late start, etc.
I’d like to reiterate the RC responsibilities for everyone.
1. The first page in the RC book that is at the stand tells you what you need to do. READ IT.
2. No more than 3 people on the RC stand. Three is all you need. One to check boats in, one to manage the flags, and one to watch the time to ensure the races and the prestart start on time. Anymore than 3 and you have people standing around with nothing to do but interfere with the Race Committee. This is not a get together or a party. The RC has a job to do, an important one. If you want to have a get together do it AFTER the race.
3. The first horn goes off at 5:55 and that is started by turning on the red switch on the horn box (This is in the book and in the instructions) at 5:55:50. NOT 6:00, NOT 6:04 or 6:03. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Everything after that is automatic.
4. The raising and lowering of the flags is supposed to be synchronized with each horn and the only way you can accomplish that is to be prepared for the horns to sound. (That’s the person watching the time).
Once all the boats have started put the horn and the flags away and get prepared to record the finish times.
This isn’t rocket science here but it does require your attention. If anyone feels that they have attention deficit or a reading comprehension so severe that they would not be able to accomplish the above let me know. Jump in the thread.
Photo thanks to Maria Scrivan.
