racing marks

[sailingfool23]

Nebraska racers, looking for smaller racing marks to replace our 24" ones that sink before end of race. We cannot fit the huge ones shown in popular suppliers catalogs in our small commitee boat.Thanks if you can help.

[geohan]

For racing buoys on short courses you might try large white fenders ballasted with suitable lengths of chain forming the upper part of their rodes. An alternative is 20-inch diameter orange fenders or even large plastic beach balls from Target,K-Mart or some such. In our club we fabricate buoys from 8-foot lengths of 10-inch PVC pipe we get as scrap from local sewer contractors. They are ballasted with concrete and filled with scrap styrofoam and are pretty substantial. They remain on station year around on 200-pound concrete anchors on Puget Sound. Regards, Geroge

[paulk]

To get better visibility, you could try taking two or more styrofoam kickboards and rigging them together to float on end (weighted down with a short chain). You could make them into a square or trianglular overall shape by attaching the long edges of three or four together. You could make X shape by cutting a notch half way down from the top of one and half up from the bottom of the other, sliding then together and gluing them. Add a hole for the chain and anchor line, paint them a good color, and voila!