EVALUATION OF SAN FRANCISCO MORA FLED We received the following letter in the mail from Donald Goring, one of the founding fathers of MORA (Midget Ocean Racing Association.) If you like impassioned letters, you’ll love this one. Goring is disturbed about what is hap¬ pening to racing in America, but most particularly with racing in the local MORA fleet. According to Donald, MORA has lost 50 % of their member¬ ship since he last raced. In the following letter he’ll tell you who he thinks is to blame, and what ought to be done about it. MORA’s annual meeting will be held at the Richmond YC on November 15 at 8 p.m. (cocktails at 7.) Donald predicts that it “may be a bit noisy as I am stepping on a lot of toes.” You might want to be there, or give him a call at (415) 832-5420.
if a sailor is an asshole, announce it at a MORA meeting. If an asshole twice, suspend him for a race . . .
Well MORA sailors, it appears you have been neutered. “Night candles are damned near burn’t out, and so are ypu.” Absorbed by the YRA (Yacht Racing Association), you must now stand in line, at the back of the line, and wait to be told what, when, and how. And then the deed is with deaden dullness done. The Yea Sayers, the timid of the Bay, these are now the masters of what was once North America’s most exciting ocean racing group. , MORA sailors who round the Farallones at 3 a.m. in 30 knots of wind cannot sail inside the South Tower! It is dangerous! What shame for these sheep of the seas. Why is MORA living this tepid, listless, dull, plodding existence? For a start, because many of those that govern you do not even race. Should you wish action on a MORA problem, you will encounter YRA non¬ sailors in your way. If you go to your own officers with a problem, you will find non-racers in your way. And this is why the Sage said: “if you no playa the game, you no maka the rule”. In 1969 the 73-ft ketch Stormvogel with 10-ft of draft veered off course while zipping inside the South Tower, to avoid a small fishboat, and struck a rock. No damage to life or property, but the terrified, the timid, of YRA became more spineless, and Presto! MORA too is spineless. MORA gave it’s freedom to the YRA for respectability? MORA cannot have life, sparkle, when it is controlled by a group whose only interest in MORA is to CONTROL MORA. What to do? Here MORA is lucky be¬ cause one Donald Goring is back in town!, with EXPERIENCE, ideas, SPARKLE, WILL, and DIRECTION. And after an absence of seven years, I wish to play in the ocean again, with my 30-ft cutter Starbuck. I do not wish to play with a dying organization. Now the necessary surgery; to enable MORA to have camaraderie, a squeeze of the hand: 1. Drop the YRA. They need you,
you do not need them. On our own, in two years time we will have 200 members. At $40 a head that is eight grand to play with. Let us go for it. 2. If necessary break with all yacht vclubs so you cannot be pressured. The best clubs will stick with MORA. MORA got it’s image by being exciting; being respectable is killing MORA. 3. Ignore the IOR and go PHRF (Performance Handicap Rating For¬ mula) . Favor the rank and file, not the expensive Prima Donna. If 60 of our yachts come tearing thru the South Tower into a fleet of expensive Dinosaurs called Six Meters, no big deal. We will roar through them quickly enough and then they can resume their plodding fun. We do not ask for races courses or dates, WE set them and race them. 4. Now a committee boat is not needed to start and finish a race. A par¬ ticipant yacht with a freon horn can become a “Rabbit” that start all off. The rabbit yacht has the favored end of the line. To finish in an isolated area, the first boat takes it’s own time and that of the second yacht. The second yacht takes it’s own time and that of the third yacht, etc. Each yachts calls a timekeeper who corrects the watches. A recording machine would do, a Colin Archer would do nicely. 5. All courses should.be “by any course”. The new and the timid will never progress through protection. 6. Protests: The Spirit of the Rule, that is it. Dispense with the letter of the rule and go for heart. Simplify. If two boats touch, both when able do a 360-degree turn. If a port tack boat is caught in a rip and you are in great shape on starboard, why not take his stern and make a friend. If a sailor is an asshole, announce it at a MORA meeting. If the sailor is an asshole twice, suspend that sailor for a race. Have a fixed Marin rendezvousraftup prior to each ocean race. (Say a spot close to Hurricane Gulch.) Now a yacht coming from Vallejo or Berkeley,
