I do understand the need to be able to cancel a tournament based on weather conditions for the day. It is a thankless job whether they cancel or run it. I have to say though that if they allow it to start, they should let the Captain make the call when to quit. Trying to cancel a tourney early over a marine radio with boats scattered out 20-30 miles is extremely difficult to nearly impossible reach all participants. That is a huge problem with calling it early. Once they decided that they are going to let you fish, they should let you fish the entire day. Would another hour or two really have mattered? It is up to the captain to get his boat off the water when it is unsafe to fish per the rules.

That said we never got the call fishing 12 miles north of port in South Haven. Our radio was on and working fine, we simply did not receive the transmission probably due to being a small boat in big waves. Through a cell call 45 minutes after the call was made we learned that we had missed our chance to make it in before being penalized for a call to cancel we never heard.