Bring your Red Flag to Frostbiting by Mark Kondracky
						It was a perfect start to Frostbiting this year. With warm temperatures, and not too much tide, who could ask for more?  The race committee did a great job shifting the course as the light Northerly lost it's battle to the Southerly.  The Blue Jay, Etchells, and Laser numbers were up, the JY's were missing a number of boats which were competing in Florida.    After the race one of the Etchells competitors asked me about a rules question.  Apparently one of the Etchells didn't obtain an overlap, but rounded ahead of another boat at the leeward mark..  This forced the person who was talking to me to go even futher to the outside.  Making matters worse, the two other Etchells bumped into each other and no one did any penalty circles. The competitor wanted to know if we follow the rules or not?  While it is great to avoid the protest room, and head straight for the bar, our sport requires that we police it ourselves.  My advice is to have a protest flag and if you have to use it, do so.  You could always withdraw it later.   If you don't have a flag, then don't complain.  It's our job to police ourselves.    I could also make a couple of observations of the JY fleet on Sunday. While with large numbers things can get messy, this wasn't the case Sunday.  When all the boats were bunched at the pin end for a start, one bailed out when no hole openned up.  Another boat hit a mark, and did a circle, as well as the boat that thought it hit the mark. Now the second is going to far, and when competitiors weren't sure of the windward mark, it was relayed to the boats.
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