Help with a sailing game?

[Brian S]

Guys, we are supposed to be running a tennis ball race game for our club cruising members this weekend. We are hoping to use our 6 Sunfish for it, plus people's own boats if they want. Unfortunately, I don't know what the rules are or how they used to do it years ago.

From what I understand, we have 4 baskets ringed with pool noodles and tennis balls with numbers on them. And statements like "Whoever gets the most balls in wins."

Have any of you done something like this before? How did you do it?

I'm thinking thoughts like make it a race with a start and finish line, and the boats have to sail the course in a proscribed manner, and if you miss a shot, you have to go get your ball, and if you hit the basket with your boat, you have to a full turn, and then whoever gets back first wins. But that would really only work well if we only did it with the Sunfish. And we'd need a committee boat, which is not a big deal, but the official committee boat and buoys will be out for the racing members. And this is supposed to be more a fun thing and skills course than a time course.

Any thoughts you might have would be welcome.

I need to get some solid ideas and rules so I can send out a good advertisement email so that folks will show up Saturday.

Google is not helping, it's only showing me computer and board games. Except for a list on the PDR website, but it doesn't show anything like our game.

Thanks for the help,
Brian

 

[Brian S]

Got my answers. Turns out the "historian" of the club found an email describing everything.

3 baskets set out. Everyone given 3 tennis balls. Mass start, and whoever gets a ball in each basket first wins. If you miss the basket, you must retrieve and get it in the basket to move on to the next. If you jump overboard to get the ball in, you must retrieve the MOB to proceed. If you hit the basket, you must do a full 360º to proceed. Set basket #1 close to the start so that most boats will be there at the same time.

With enough boats participating, and different sizes from Sunfish on up to our marina max of 24', it should be good pandemonium fun. Especially if we add in a water war component to deal with the anticipated heat!

Brian

 

[justsomeguy]

Get (and post) some video of this, m'kay?

 

[Merlin Clark]

Sounds like a lot of fun Brian!

 

[Ross]

I think those games started with the scouts and canoes.

 

[Brian S]

I will try to get some video. Should be able to with the iPhone. Still not sure why I bought one of those little video cameras once, I don't even know where it is!

Brian

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I was at a regatta in Racine Wisconsin (Lake Michigan) with my Hobie Cat years ago when the racing was cancelled for the day due to the heavy fog (just over the lake)that wouldn't lift enough to see more than about 10'. It was a weird occasion because it was a sunny 90 degree day on the beach but the lake water had turned over the night before, as it will sometimes during a hot summer, so that the surface water was about 55 degrees.

Anyway, with no racing, the organizers devised some sort of game that had to do with collecting watermelons which were tossed into the lake. Green watermelons are hard enough to see in green lake water, nevermind the fog. They actually seem to float just barely at the surface of the water.