Dale Kramer wrote:

John and Gary

I answered this poll under then assumption that the best exit point be
used, not the last.

I am in favour of the best, as is the case for all turnpoints
thereafter, why throw in another rule of last exit or only from half
of cylinder, thats not what was asked in the poll.

Bumping prestart gaggles should not be the determining factor on start
location. First that assumes that the gaggles (now people are assuimg
there are more than one which is good) are on course line and that
they are not typical prestart gaggles where people are going in and
out of the thermal trying to stay below max start height. I would not
chance bumping a typical prestart gaggle and besides we have this on
course all the time.

Keep it simple and take the best exit point.

In my limited experience, out West it's true, is that if you're starting
through the top it's a good well defined thermal that it has a beneficial
climb rate.

As such, you should soon be over the top well enough that a on-course glide won't take you
through
the start cylinder again.

One case I can think this might not apply is with a strong headwind. In that case, you
could be an additional mile down-wind (and track) from the start.

In an effort to spread out the starts from the ideal point on a circle, I think this is a
reasonable
way to go.

On the other issue of 1 mile TP's I can only think that's going to reproduce the start zone
shenanigans (Respect to Netscape, that was in the spell-checker!) at each TP.
Trying to bump gaggles in order to go deeper/quicker into the TP.
Let's get everyone out of the TP ASAP so they can make indicidual decisions again.

Chris