In the course of umpiring, I of course see plenty of fouls. Mostly, they’re caused by boat-handling errors – in situations where boats are maneuvering very closely, a few inches one way or another can make the difference between a well-executed play and a foul. And all the rules Part 2 of the RRS are involved, at one time or another.
But patterns do sometimes emerge, and we saw a definite pattern at the Opti Team Race Nationals this July that led me to think that rule 15 is not well understood, even at the top level of Opti sailors, where coaches are common.
The team-race rules are almost exactly the same as the regular rules for fleet racing, making me think that maybe lots of top Opti sailors are ignorant of (or ignoring) rule 15 in fleet racing as well; so I thought a brief review might be a good idea.
The situation the umpires saw repeatedly is roughly the one shown in UK-Halsey Quiz 8. One boat (Green in the quiz) is on starboard tack, luffing her sails just below the starting line and another boat (Red) comes in on starboard tack from behind her. Red establishes an overlap very close to leeward of Green (in the case of Optis, a few inches away) and almost immediately makes contact with the other boat. In the quiz, Red doesn’t change course during the incident, but at the Opti TR Nationals we saw a number of incidents where the overtaking boat also luffed up toward the boat that was luffing her sails on the line.
Either with a change of course or without, Red breaks rule 15, ACQUIRING RIGHT OF WAY, which says: “When a boat acquires right of way, she shall initially give the other boat room to keep clear, unless she acquires right of way because of the other boat’s actions.”
In the starting-line case, the overlap is clearly not established because of Green’s actions: she was just sitting on the line minding her own business. And if Red comes in too close to Green, there’s nothing Green can do to keep clear. If she trims in, she’ll slide down into Red because she hasn’t established any lift on her foils; if Green just sits there, Red runs into her boom.
The amazing thing, to us, was that frequently after this happened Red protested Green and Green did her turn. Of course, this means that the umpires never got involved in that protest, so all we could do is bemoan the fact that the wrong boat was spinning. And of course having one boat already at the back of the fleet at the start is not a great way for a team to win. We wondered afterwards, how many races would have had the opposite outcome if Green had known her rules and stood up for her rights!
On the open race course, and even before the start, the call between rule 15 and the right-of-way rule (such as rule 11, requiring the windward boat to keep clear) comes down to subtleties: Did the windward boat do something, like bear off, that established the overlap? Did the new keep-clear boat do all she could to keep clear? Did the other boat give her room to do so? But at the starting line, with one boat almost dead in the water and the other boat coming in to leeward of her with good way on, there’s rarely a close decision. The boat coming from astern was at least partially responsible for the overlap, so rule 15 almost always applies, and there’s really nothing the new windward boat can do to avoid the contact. So, if there’s contact very soon after the overlap is established, it’s almost always because the boat coming from astern didn’t initially give the new windward boat room to keep clear.
So next time you’re the boat luffing on the line, don’t take any nonsense from a boat that comes in to leeward of you and starts yelling “Up, up!” or something like that. If you have room to do so, trim in and hike out, so you’ll keep clear of the other boat; if you don’t have room and there’s contact, protest under rule 15.
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This posting deals with a new, added definition called Mark-Room.As you will see, there is a lot to this definition and, in my opinion, there will be a lot of discussion about some of the wording in it. I will post enough to get you thinking but for sure you'll be seeing a lot more written about Mark-Room.
Mark-Room Room for a boat to sail to the mark, and then room to sail her proper course while at the mark. However, mark-room does not include room to tack unless the boat is overlapped to windward and on the inside of the boat required to give mark-room.
First of all, to understand what mark-room is, you will have to have your rulebook handy because it uses a bunch of other definitions as part of the text e.g. room, proper course, mark, etc.
Second, note that a boat will be entitled to mark-room while sailing to the mark and then room to sail her proper course while at the mark.
I predict that "sailing to the mark" and being "at the mark" are phrases that will create no small amount of "opinion".
There is one thing that jumped right out at me and that's the part about room to sail your proper course while at the mark.
As things stand now, Rule 18.2 (a) requires an outside boat to give an inside overlapped boat room to round or pass… and if the inside boat is a right of way boat, the outside boat must also keep clear.
In practice what this means is that the inside boat gets room to do a tactical rounding if she's a right of way boat but if not, she is entitled to just enough room to round in a seamanlike way.
Under the new rules, the inside boat will always be entitled to do a tactical rounding because she can sail her proper course while at the mark.
THIS IS A GAME CHANGE!
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