Shawnee Mission Park Marina has some difficult areas to dock with the recently-added finger docks for the Marina rentals. This provides some potentially difficult docking procedures depending on wind condition.

The maps in this section indicate some preferred regions of the Marina to dock based on the prevailing wind conditions. These should allow sailboats to (mostly) be docked with their bows into the wind - essential for safe operation of the boats. Docking into the wind ensures that the sails are not powered while at the dock, and ensures that the boats can coast in to dock under their own momentum without excessive speed.

The section below goes into more specifics about docking at the Shawnee Mission Park dock itself and some recommended procedures for maneuvering boats into the dock area. Note that, when comparing the graphic on the right, which is North-up, the graphics in the docking section below are flipped and have a South-up orientation.

The race start sequence always starts with the Come Within Hail flag raised. This indicates to nearby sailors that the race is about to start, so they should come by the Race Committee barge to get ready and ensure that the race course is known.

About one minute before the start sequence (about six minutes before the start of the race), the Come Within Hail flag is lowered accompanied by a horn sound. This lets sailors know that the start of the race is imminent.

At five minutes before the start of the race, the official race clock is started - times can no longer be approximate. At this time, if using shapes, the blue shape is raised with a horn sound. Exactly one minute later (four minutes before the start of the race), the yellow shape is raised. The shapes then stay put until three minutes later, one minute before the start of the race, when the yellow shape is lowered with a horn sound. Finally, one minute later, at the race start, the blue shape is lowered with a horn sound.

At this time, the Race Committee checks to make sure that no boat has crossed the starting line early - if a boat has started early, they may be individually recalled, where the boat must go back behind the starting line and then cross the line after the race has started. A group recall may occasionally be needed to restart the sequence if too many boats are over early or there is a different issue with race start.