Race Committee Duties for April 24, 2012
Aventura did race committee duties for the Tuesday races. Collecting enough people to do the work was almost easier than getting a crew for racing. Mike N., Jerry A., Bill S., Warren D., Scott S. and Bill O. all volunteered. We had one crew member who volunteered but did not make it in time to get on the boat, Chuck H. The above is the track for the evening. I have been trying to get a track for over a year using my netbook and OpenCPN. I finally got one. I shall be adding them to these posts for this season.

We were told to go to the North River Mark, "N". We made it on station a little after 6:00 PM. We tried to raise Poncho, but were not able to. We spotted them trying to place the Upper River Mark, "U". It would not set because of the high water and current. They did set X and A marks. They then requestd us to move to 14 because the wind was light and shifting between south and east. That is the loop track above. We no sooner got to 14 than Poncho told us to go back to N. We anchored 100 yards off the Washington shore at 45 degrees 36 minutes N and 122 degrees 36 minutes W. The starting mark was placed 400 feet WSW of us.

Rich J. runs the races. He organized the flag operators, the spotters, and the recorders. We had two people on the bow as the mark was up river from us spotting the starts and signalling any boats that started early. Rich ran "Auto" which keeps the timing for the races and flags. It's an ordered chaos running the races. Two people run the flags up and down. They alternate the fleet flags with the preporatory flag. Two are recorders. One spots the boats the other writes the times down.

Rich ended up shortening all fleets except the A fleet races. As with the fickleness of the winds early in the evening did not give us much time for the race. We did not start the first race until 7:20 PM, which gave us only one hour before sundown. Originally the racers were sent for two laps either around X or A and back around N. This allowed us to shorten the race at N or just one lap.

Neat experience doing the Race Committee. I look forward to doing it again. Next time I will engage the engine when Jerry is pulling up the anchor.