The 2009-2012 Racing Rules of Sailing feature a couple of
changes that haven't received much attention, what with all the hullabaloo
about the changes to Section C. One of
these is the change to rule 23.2 (formerly, 22.2) regarding interfering with a
boat on a different leg (or doing her turns).
This probably won't come up a lot in fleet racing except near the end of
a regatta when one boat wants to push another boat back in the fleet, but it
certainly comes up in team and match racing.
The
new rule is a direct copy of the 2005-2008 match-race rule: "Except
when sailing her proper course, a boat shall not interfere with a boat
taking a penalty or sailing on another leg." The old rule (numbered 22.2) said "A boat shall not change course if her only
purpose is to interfere with a boat … on another leg or lap of the
course." So the old rule required
intent and a change in course, but the new rule only requires that a boat not
be sailing her proper course at the time of interference.
The new rule is plainly simpler, but has some
subtle ramifications. First, because
intent is no longer part of the rule, it applies equally to both boats involved
– if one boat cuts across to another leg to interfere with another boat and the
other boat is not sailing her proper course when the interference occurs, then
both boats break the rule (or maybe only the boat that didn't cut the course).
Well, that seems OK, doesn't it? Why would the boat on the other leg be
sailing anything other than her proper course?
The answer might be, to avoid the attacking boat! Consider the following
scenario:
It's the last race of a series, and Rule
Beater is five points behind Just There for the championship. But Rule Beater hasn't used her
throw-out, while Just There has already had a bad race so she can't
afford to throw out this one. That
means Rule Beater can win the championship if she can force Just
There back into the fleet, to, let's say, 15th place. Rule Beater doesn't care what place
she gets in this race, as she's going to throw out the race anyway.
The course is windward-leeward, twice
around. Rule Beater covers Just
There before the start and manages for them both to get terrible starts;
but Just There gets free, sails well on the first windward leg and comes
to the port-rounding mark in 12th place, just ahead of Rule
Beater. So Rule Beater,
instead of following Just There around the mark, reaches across below
the mark on starboard tack and then hardens up again, meeting Just There
as she's bearing off for the downwind leg.
Rule 18 doesn't apply between them because Just There is leaving
the mark and Rule Beater is approaching it. They're both on starboard tack and Just There is to
windward, so she must keep clear. So
she luffs up to a close-hauled course, putting herself just to windward of Rule
Beater, who now cannot tack for the mark without breaking rule 16.
Then … (drum roll here) Rule Beater protests Just There
for breaking rule 23.2! She's right,
because (a) the boats are clearly on different legs of the course; (b) Just
There is not sailing her proper course; and (c) Just There is
interfering with Rule Beater, who wants to tack and go back to the
mark.
This all has to do with the definition of
Proper Course, which is defined as "[a] course a boat would sail to finish as soon as possible in
the absence of the other boats referred to in the rule using the
term." So when Rule Beater
forces Just There to luff up away from her course to the next mark,
there is no question that Just There is not on her proper course –
because in the absence of Rule Beater, she would surely have simply
sailed downwind toward the leeward mark!
It's possible that Rule Beater is
breaking rule 23.2 as well – she's clearly interfering with Just There,
and if she's not on her proper course, she might be in trouble. ISAF Case 78 says in part that while
executing a tactic to slow another boat, " a boat … breaks rule 2 if she intentionally breaks another rule to
increase the likelihood of the tactic succeeding." So if Rule Beater breaks rule 23.2
"intentionally", she breaks rule 2 as well, in which case her DSQ for
the rule-2 breach is non-discardable, meaning she has to count it in her series
score, even if she retires immediately in acknowledgment of breaking rule 23.2
(see rules 64.1(a) and (b)). This would
clearly defeat her purpose in getting Just There disqualified or
making her do her turns.
Note that rule 23.2, like almost all other
Part 2 rules, only looks at the moment in question. In general, if a rule references a boat's course, as rule 23.2
does, it's irrelevant how she got there, only what her course is at the
time. (There are exceptions to this
principle, as for example rule 18.3, which uses the past tense to describe
events that had to occur before the rule could come into effect, and rule
18.2(b), which uses the relationship of boats at the edge of the zone to
determine mark-room later; but such rules refer clearly to the earlier
criterion.) The fact that Rule
Beater reached over (i.e., sailed below her proper course) to intercept Just
There is irrelevant, as long as she turned to her proper course (in this
case, close-hauled) before interfering.
This seems like a huge loophole to me.
Another issue is the meaning of the word
"shall not interfere". This
is not a defined expression, and seems to me to be much stronger than
"shall keep clear" or "shall give room". I think that arguably, even luffing one's
sails to windward of a boat interferes with her; and certainly exercising right
of way over a keep-clear boat, as Rule Beater did, or using a right to
room to keep a right-of-way boat from sailing her course, as Just There
did, is interfering. And as long as Rule
Beater's proper course is to tack back to the mark, I think Just There
is interfering with her by simply being, well, just there. But what if they're close to the mark and Rule
Beater's proper course is to gybe around and go back to the mark? Does that mean Just There is not
"interfering" with her? This
seems like a reasonable statement, to me, but it bothers me that somehow Proper
Course, a defined term, can be involved in interpreting "Interfere",
which is undefined.
Finally, we come to the issue is what is
meant by "on different legs", but I'll leave that thorny question for
now. Suffice it to say that you can't
use the rule C7.2(c) definition from match racing, except to decide how to do
MR penalty turns. There's a Team Race
Rapid Response Call about to come out that gives some insight into this issue;
stay tuned.
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