Sunday Rules Snap |4 関西学生ヨット春季選手権大会

From the other side of the Globe: Snipes and 470's

Dear Jos,
I always appreciate your great work in LOOK TO WINDWARD. Although you may not know, Japan intercollegiate sailing is very popular and has long history over 80 years. Its characteristic is that racing classes are only 470 and Snipe, and the format is a fleet racing. The KANSAI Intercollegiate Sailing Championship was held from May 5th through 6th at the Nishinomiya yacht harbour, where is located between Osaka and Kobe and which is one of the three famous yacht harbours in Japan.
KANSAI is a familiar name. KAN means a barrier, SAI means west and TOO means east. Therefore KAN-SAI is West of Japan. Its capital is Osaka, my city. KAN-TOO is East of Japan. Needless to say, its capital is Tokyo.
In this regatta, participating boats were 44 boats for 470 class and 43 boats for Snipe class. The student sailors in Kansai are fairly strong. Incidentally, a university 470 team won the 2nd place and a university Snipe team won the 3rd place in the last Japan intercollegiate sailing championship 2008. The condition was the wind, 5.4m/s to 7.6m, the first day and 3m/s to 4.5m/s, the second day. Two classes' races took effect at the same area and the starting sequence was made normally every five minutes because of 3 through 5 races per day. Since wind was weak on the second day, 470 and Snipe boats sailed together at the same time and rounding marks was thrown into great confusion. We were happy 'Zone' is three lengths for both.
Jury boats were three, two ribs and one SRV. Jury members were four senior judges, three judges and two probationers. The total number of Protests were seven and Rule 42 infringements were three. No comments in particular. The regatta was good success.
Attached hereto two photos and two results.
With best wishes,
Sen Yamaoka

Is that you in the Jury-boat, Sen?