The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly! Our weather at the moment. The rain is good, and we need it. The dirt road to our dam is BAD! Uncle Roy, it was still nice when you got stuck there. Ugly is what will happen to any car trying to get in there. I had a look there Friday afternoon, and it wasn't too bad. Had we not had 18 mm of rain that night, we would have been able to get through Saturday afternoon.

 Ah well, Sh-one-t happens.

We’ve finalized our Racing Calendar, and sorted out a couple of other items before we do get round to racing in all earnest.

Something that has been bugging me for some time is the start of a race, and the rules that do or don't apply.

According to the rules one has completed a race if you have started, i.e., crossed the start line, from the pre-course side, rounded all the marks in the correct order and direction, and then finishing by not necessarily crossing the line completely. Okay, if that makes sense, great, if not read Rule 28.1.

Then we read Rule 30.1; 30.2; and  30.3. These all refer to being in the triangle between the start line and the first mark, and the consequent penalties that can be imposed.

Now.  How do some skippers justify their starting by coming up to the line from the course side, and then dipping over the line at start minus some seconds, just to re-cross the line again for the start!   The Sailing Instructions can, and do make allowance for discarding rules pretty much as the organizers like, but should this be allowed? And are there guidelines for not using Rule 30?

In my opinion the average start line for a gang of R/C boats is generally long enough that all skippers have a fair enough chance of getting the start that they want by being where they should be in sufficient time before the start. By allowing boats to start from the course side Race Officers are encouraging the cowboy element, and things are eventually going to get to the stage where major pile-ups will happen at the start because of boats arriving at the line in four different directions.

A start with port and starboard starters is hairy enough, without throwing in the course side and pre-start port and starboard boats.

In my (maybe misguided) opinion, the Racing Rules of Sailing, which have been developed over a loooong period of time, were developed to be used in their entirety. Omitting or discarding rules IF the situation warrants an exclusion, that is fine, IF the decision is made at Committee level. Negating the applicability of a rule because one or two skippers want it omitted should not even be considered.

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As thankful as we are for the rain, I wish the Weather guys would get their act together and suspend all rain from Wednesday until Sunday.

To get to our dam we have to travel down about a kilometre of dirt road. No Problem. Unless it’s wet and muddy, as only the Free State can get wet and muddy. At times like this I DO NOT take my car off a tarred road! I’ve had to have the sodding thing pulled out of mud too many times to try it again.

The only real option we have at this stage is to work on our boats. For the past while I’ve been working on a boat that has its basic design origin in Janus Walicki’s original Skalpel. To celebrate its transformation and to give it a South African Ethnic Tradition (very, very fashionable in these times), I call it an Okapi. Just as the Skalpel is an Instrument of Surgery on the international scene, so the Okapi is a Traditional Ethnic Surgery Tool. Everybody of true ethnicity has one in his pocket, ready to perform surgery. And we are no longer getting doctors from Cuba.

To get away from politics for a while, after about 6 or 7 builds, the boat is now in its final (I think) stages. Before making a mould off it I need to do something about the knuckle at the sharp end, and it has to lose about 3mm LOA. At the same time I will re-design the blunt end, to try and make it prettier.

I don’t have a time schedule laid out yet, as this will have to be crammed in with renovations to the house and my commercial attempts.