Capture the flag with boats

[bnewman]

I have this idea every time I fly into Logan. The view of Boston Harbor is spectacular, and it's speckled with small islands. I want to get a bunch of friends together, rent some small sailboats, and play CTF across Boston Harbor.

I'm now pretty sure that this plan won't work, because the area is too large and mooring on the islands is too regulated. However, I remain interested in developing a set of CTF rules involving small boats (and islands, although a pure, open-water CTF game could be nifty, too).

Play, of course, depends on the availability of a lot of very small islands very close together in sheltered water. It must be both legal and possible to land small boats on said islands. Ideally, they should be sand bars, which means anywhere where there are barrier islands is a good place to look, which means most of the middle part of the east coast. Especially promising are these two locations in South Carolina (not that I'm planning a trip to SC just to play CTFwB!) — but I'm not sure that the dots in the second location are actually land.

The equipment required depends on the scale of the play area. For small scale, kayaks would be ideal. For medium scale, small sailboats — racing standard 14-footers would work nicely — or a mixture of kayaks and sailboats. If islands aren't available, inflatable kayaks and inflatable pool platforms could be deployed in an appropriately sized lake.

All of which is not to mention rules. For open-water tagging, either ramming or missile weapons would work. Ramming means eithr padded bows or inflatable boats. As for missile weapons, the ideal choice is water stix, because you can't run out of ammo for it. Rules for land tagging would depend on the scenario and on the character of the islands. Scenarios could range from standard CTF to more scavanger-hunt-like puzzle quests.

I miss boats.

Comments

[gallian.livejournal.com]

now you're making me homesick for the hudson. which says something, given the general state of the water there.

and my trip down the red line accross the charles will only make things worse.

thanks a lot! :)

[irilyth]

Why do you need land at all? I like islands as terrain, but do you need to be able to land on them?

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

If you can't land on the islands, then you need to be able to place items on water and have them stay where you put them, which requires more specialized equipment. But that would also be a fun game.

[irilyth]

What kinds of items? I mostly remember there being a flag, which you generally didn't put down once you picked it up. :^)

[wayman.livejournal.com]

If the flag is on an island, then all the action is going to take place in very close proximity to that one island, making other islands irrelevant; if the object is to deliver the flag to a second island, the second island becomes relevant, but additional islands don't seem to figure into the gameplay as I understand it. This would seem to greatly increase the number of potential playing venues. Unless the point of the islands is for tactical hiding and ambushing, in which case the game would seem to require extremely fast paddling (or extremely fast and precise sailing), and would be likely to last for a very, very long time.

Or do I totally misunderstand the concept?

[irilyth]

Ja, my impression was that islands would be a lot like trees and hills in the basic game, i.e. interesting terrain to maneuver around.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

My thought was that it would not be immediately obvious which island a team's flag was on. Thus, the other team might have to explore several islands. There might also me multiple flags, or clues leading to flags, or whatever, on different islands.