Racing Start

The picture above clearly illustrates how important it is to get a good start in a sailing race - and how tough it can be.

How many Lasers can you in the start area in the picture? 35 maybe? And how many are on the start line in the front row? A dozen perhaps? Actually there were 56 boats in that start - some them are so buried that you can't even see them.

So out of 56 boats, over 40 are going to be starting in bad air and are never going to recover from their poor start.The photo was taken of a typical start in the Laser frostbite fleet last winter at Cedar Point Yacht Club, Westport, CT.