An issue came upon our weekly club sailing night concerning the start line. Normally it is closed after the start. This evening the RC said it was open. Someone got a little bent out of shape over it. We only had 5 boats out and no other boats on the lake. I didn't see any point in having a closed line either except to make the course a tiny bit harder. Isn't the main point of a closed line to make it easier to start another race after the first set of boats are off ? Is there a safety issue or something else? We were sailing simple windward/leewards with the start line in the middle.