Naval Gunnery Race By Andrew Linn
The problem of firing from a moving platform has plagued both pirates and navies
from the time man first put to sea. As Patrick O'Brien's Captain Aubrey
often showed us, naval gunnery takes practice. In the days of yore, the big
payoff for being proficient in naval gunnery was a more rapid defeat of your
foe.
So what can we - modern day small boat sailors with all the rights,
responsibilities, and liabilities that comes from civilization ? do to keep
the tradition of naval gunnery alive?
One possibility would be to make the race course marks into targets.
The targets could be bouys in the water, or markers along the shore.
On approach
to the mark, the racers fire and when they score a hit, they can go onto the
next leg of the race. The more accurate the gun crew, the shorter the course.
"Gunnery" is pretty vague - it can be anything from simply throwing
projectiles to catapults to potato/air cannons. I wouldn't recommend using
real cannons. And either use biodegradable projectiles or clean up after
yourself & don't litter.
And fer crying out loud - use your head and be safe.
Poker Run
A series of bouys are setup along the shore or out in the water.
Each point has a stack of envelopes, each contains a single card.
The fleet sails around the course, stopping at each point and picks out a single envelope.
When they get to the destination, everyone opens their envelopes to show their cards, and the best poker hand wins.
Scavenger Hunt
Search to find things, such as 3 different kinds of seaweed, drift wood, piece line, plastic bottle, certain type of leaf, lat and long of a dock, pink toilet paper etc.
The items depend on the area you are in.
UFO Rescue Mission
A UFO has crashed at night, and all the little aliens are floating around.
The aliens are glow sticks that are in clear plastic bottles.
The one who picks up the most aliens wins.
Can do in the daylight with tennis balls, easter eggs, blocks of foam or plywood etc.
You can also number each alien, and then when all have been rescued, figure out what each alien is worth by rolling dice.
Such as that you roll the dice and it comes up with a 3, so all aliens with 1 on them are worth 3 points.
Then you roll the dice and get a 6, so all aliens with a 2 on them are worth 6 points, and so on.
Catch a tail
Tie a plastic streamer to end of boom so hangs over the stern OR drag the streamer in the water, tied from the transom - the streamer should be something easy to break off, like surveyors marking tape.
The object is to steal the streamer from as many other boats as you can in a certain time limit.
You are not allowed to handle your own streamer, sail or boom with your hands - you can only tack and use the sheets.
You get 1 point for every tail you get, and 3 points for keeping your own tail.
Paddle Obstacle Course
Use the boat without a sail, just a daggerboard, rudder / tiller.
One crew member uses a canoe paddle and the other is on the tiller.
The boat is navigated thru an obstacle course, either one boat per turn in time trials, or as a race.
Grab The Shark
(youth game)
An inflatable shark is anchored in the middle of the water.
The sailor has to sail up and touch it's tail without touching any other parts of the shark.
If you touch another part of the shark, you are out.
After everyone has touched the shark's tail, then do something more complicated like touch it's tail and then teeth.
Keep getting more complicated till all but one are out.
Boat Recovery
All the boats are divided into teams of 2.
Everyone sails out to a bouy together, then one boat is towed back by the other.
Then both boats sail back out to the bouy, and the other boat is towed back.
Fastest team to complete the course wins.
OR - have a single boat set adrift from a certain location (possibly with a volunteer in it), then individual boats are timed as they sail out from the dock, tie up to the boat adrift and bring it back.
Tip Top Race
Boats are raced on a regular bouy course, but at some point the boats must be knocked over in the water, and one of the crew has to swim out and touch the top of the mast, then swim back, recover the boat and continue sailing.
Rudderless Race
Boats are raced without rudders.
Tribble Race
Use only 2 boats of identical type.
Start off with 2 teams, each team sends 1 person out around a bouy and back to the dock.
When returning to the dock, 1 additional person is added to the boat and goes out again for another lap.
Continue till one of the teams capsize, or completes the final lap with all of their team members in the boat.
Long Distance Race On Small Lake
To run a really long race on a small lake, place bouys around the perimeter of the lake that have log books in them.
As you arrive at each bouy, you mark your name and time that you arrived, then continue on to the next one.
At the end of the race, the bouys are collected to confirm that you made it there.
The order that the participants signed the log & their times will prevent cheating.
You can have the bouys visited in a circular pattern or possibly a star pattern to make it interesting.
The most bouys visited (and re-visited) in a time period is the winner.
Trophies
Typically the race circuit organizer has to provide the trophies.
He can either buy them and take a collection to pay for them, or make them himself.
A great alternative to this is to have everyone who enters the racing circuit, bring a trohpy that they made, and give it to the organizer during the season.
Then at the end of the season, the first place winner gets to pick the trophy they want, then the 2nd place and so on.
I heard of some hilarious trohpies, like a bowling ball that was marine gooped to a small stand, with a small sail on top.
It was obviously for last place.
Geocaching
This is a treasure hunting sport, not really a race.
The concept is that people hide small containers with a few trinkets in them plus a log book.
Then the coordinates are published at Geocaching.com and others can then go find the containers.
When found, you take one trinket out, put another one in (that you brought), then sign the log book.
Lots of fun, and there are many geocache locations you can sail to in your pdracer.