Some people seemed to be a little confused as to how the elapsed times for the Fast Cruises are calculated this year. Each boat that takes part in a Fast Cruise is asked to record their own start and finish time. The easiest way to do this is to use the clock available on a GPS system and the time should be recorded to the nearest second when the first part of the yacht crosses the start and finish lines. The starting window allowed is always 10 minutes between 1100 and 1110. This is to stop yachts waiting until the tide turns favourable and then speeding off to the finish line.

This year we have a short course and a long course and the total distance, in a straight line from buoy to buoy, as measured by Deckman software is used. Those boats that sail the short course will have their reported elapsed times multiplied by the ratio of long course dstance divided by short course distance so that their times can be compared with yachts that have sailed the long course. The "distance corrected" elapsed times are then multiplied by the club handicap to obtain a corrected time to calculate the finishing positions.

The October Fast cruise favoured the boats that sailed the short course as there was significantly fewer windward legs on the short course but as the courses are set approximately 1 week before the Fast Cruise it is difficult to predict from where the wind will be coming on the day.

For the November Fast Cruise there was a more even split with a short course boat winning but then the next 5 boats being from the long course. Hopefully everything will even out over the winter.