The 2009-2012 Racing Rules of Sailing feature a couple ofchanges that haven't received much attention, what with all the hullabalooabout the changes to Section C. One ofthese is the change to rule 23.2 (formerly, 22.2) regarding interfering with aboat on a different leg (or doing her turns). This probably won't come up a lot in fleet racing except near the end ofa regatta when one boat wants to push another boat back in the fleet, but itcertainly comes up in team and match racing.
Thenew rule is a direct copy of the 2005-2008 match-race rule: "Exceptwhen sailing her proper course, a boat shall not interfere with a boattaking a penalty or sailing on another leg." The old rule (numbered 22.2) said "A boat shall not change course if her onlypurpose is to interfere with a boat … on another leg or lap of thecourse." So the old rule requiredintent and a change in course, but the new rule only requires that a boat notbe sailing her proper course at the time of interference.
The new rule is plainly simpler, but has somesubtle ramifications. First, becauseintent 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 theother boat is not sailing her proper course when the interference occurs, thenboth 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 besailing anything other than her proper course? The answer might be, to avoid the attacking boat! Consider the followingscenario:
It's the last race of a series, and RuleBeater is five points behind Just There for the championship. But Rule Beater hasn't used herthrow-out, while Just There has already had a bad race so she can'tafford to throw out this one. Thatmeans Rule Beater can win the championship if she can force JustThere back into the fleet, to, let's say, 15th place. Rule Beater doesn't care what placeshe gets in this race, as she's going to throw out the race anyway.
The course is windward-leeward, twicearound. Rule Beater covers JustThere 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 comesto the port-rounding mark in 12th place, just ahead of RuleBeater. So Rule Beater,instead of following Just There around the mark, reaches across belowthe mark on starboard tack and then hardens up again, meeting Just Thereas she's bearing off for the downwind leg. Rule 18 doesn't apply between them because Just There is leavingthe mark and Rule Beater is approaching it. They're both on starboard tack and Just There is towindward, so she must keep clear. Soshe luffs up to a close-hauled course, putting herself just to windward of RuleBeater, who now cannot tack for the mark without breaking rule 16.
Then … (drum roll here) Rule Beater protests Just Therefor breaking rule 23.2! She's right,because (a) the boats are clearly on different legs of the course; (b) JustThere is not sailing her proper course; and (c) Just There isinterfering with Rule Beater, who wants to tack and go back to themark.
This all has to do with the definition ofProper Course, which is defined as "[a] course a boat would sail to finish as soon as possible inthe absence of the other boats referred to in the rule using theterm." So when Rule Beaterforces 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 simplysailed downwind toward the leeward mark!
It's possible that Rule Beater isbreaking 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 whileexecuting a tactic to slow another boat, " a boat … breaks rule 2 if she intentionally breaks another rule toincrease 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 forthe rule-2 breach is non-discardable, meaning she has to count it in her seriesscore, even if she retires immediately in acknowledgment of breaking rule 23.2(see rules 64.1(a) and (b)). This wouldclearly defeat her purpose in getting Just There disqualified ormaking her do her turns.
Note that rule 23.2, like almost all otherPart 2 rules, only looks at the moment in question. In general, if a rule references a boat's course, as rule 23.2does, it's irrelevant how she got there, only what her course is at thetime. (There are exceptions to thisprinciple, as for example rule 18.3, which uses the past tense to describeevents that had to occur before the rule could come into effect, and rule18.2(b), which uses the relationship of boats at the edge of the zone todetermine mark-room later; but such rules refer clearly to the earliercriterion.) The fact that RuleBeater reached over (i.e., sailed below her proper course) to intercept JustThere is irrelevant, as long as she turned to her proper course (in thiscase, close-hauled) before interfering. This seems like a huge loophole to me.
Another issue is the meaning of the word"shall not interfere". Thisis 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'ssails to windward of a boat interferes with her; and certainly exercising rightof way over a keep-clear boat, as Rule Beater did, or using a right toroom to keep a right-of-way boat from sailing her course, as Just Theredid, is interfering. And as long as RuleBeater's proper course is to tack back to the mark, I think Just Thereis interfering with her by simply being, well, just there. But what if they're close to the mark and RuleBeater's proper course is to gybe around and go back to the mark? Does that mean Just There is not"interfering" with her? Thisseems like a reasonable statement, to me, but it bothers me that somehow ProperCourse, a defined term, can be involved in interpreting "Interfere",which is undefined.
Finally, we come to the issue is what ismeant by "on different legs", but I'll leave that thorny question fornow. Suffice it to say that you can'tuse the rule C7.2(c) definition from match racing, except to decide how to doMR penalty turns. There's a Team RaceRapid Response Call about to come out that gives some insight into this issue;stay tuned.
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