Course Layout....

[malyea]

....or specifically, how long is the starting line suppossed to be?

I'm racing with a club that seems to set the length of the starting line a bit on the short side, depends on who is "Race Committee" for the day, some are very short others are OK at best.

I've heard rules of thumb such as "add all the competing boat lengths and multiply by 125%" but all my Google searches turn up nothing.

Is there a rule, regulation or convention that prescribes the length of the starting line?

[svHyLyte]

See Race Organization and Management at US SAILING Home . A race committee will normally set a starting line to accomodate the size of the fleet. In Beer Can races organized by yacht clubs, the starting line is likely determined on an ad hoc basis.

FWIW...

[user]

Back in the day I used to RC alot of dinghy weekend regattas. I do not know if it is the same now, but the official rule then was that the line should be as long as the sum of the total length of all the registered boats. So if there were ten 25' boats registered: start line 250' long.

[paulk]

I don't think theres a "rule", but one boatlength per starter seems to work well.