A nice race for a change

We finally had a first to finish race. We beat the Tartan 10 by about 5 boat lengths and the C&C-41 by 5 minutes. These are raw times, corrected we did even better. It was our best finish of the series. The rest of the fleet was way back. One observation I will share with the group. I assume everyone knows this but all of my crew had it wrong so I thought it might be worth sharing. On a race, if the starting line is square to the wind then it matters not where the first mark is as long as boats from the committee boat and the pin have to tack to get to the mark. If you draw it out, both sides have to sail equal distance to get to the mark. So if you have a N-S starting line (Wind from the East) with the committee boat to the N and the weather mark is North and East (but more east than north) of the committee boat, that in itself does not make the committee boat end favored. What makes one end of a line favored are 1) the wind is coming more from that direction than from the other. 2) Where congestion will be at the start -- clear air is favored. and 3) Is the wind field uniform. More wind to one end favors that end. We started at the pin end where there was a bit more wind and clear air. We were first boat at the Weather mark (first boat at every mark actually). All my crew suggested I start at the committee boat end. It was a teaching moment. As I said, I assume most people on this list understand this but just in case someone can benefit from it I thought I would post it. Allen