Monday 17 November 2008

LTW Readers Q&A | 14

A team race question from Wag:

This weekend, I was umpiring university team racing in Fireflies. About 10 teams taking part, the usual team racing S course. In two races, all of the competitors failed to go round mark 2.

There is not a lot of guidance on this. The competitors in the two races were asking for them to be run again or for the results to stand because everyone sailed the same course.

Before I tell you what was done, what would you have done?

Dear Wag,
If your Team Racing is done under appendix D you should have a look at rule D3.1. I think that covers your situation. If boats have rounded the wrong mark you should first determine if she or her team had any advantage in doing so. If not, just let the race stand. If yes, then add 10 points.

If you don’t sail under appendix D, you could argue that first someone has to protest. You cannot penalise a boat without a hearing. I don’t think the umpires should do that. There’s no obligation. Neither should the RC protest. The teams shouldn’t do it either, because they have both to lose.
Without a protest the result stands.

What did you end up doing?

.

5 comments:

  1. Having done most of my umpiring in Match Racing, the more I see of Team Racing, the more it alarms me.

    Who makes the decision under rule D3.1?

    Are you saying that rule D3.1 overrides rule 63.1, even though rule 63.1 specifically lists the rules that permit penalty without protest and rule D3.1 is not in the list?

    Brass

    ReplyDelete
  2. We didnt apply rule D3.1b. If we had given all boats an extra 10 points, the results would have stood. There might have been an argument about whether or not the last boat gained an advantage. If the last boat didnt get the 10 points, that would have been an odd result.

    We were uneasy about letting a team win a race (and hence get an advantage over other teams in the round robbin) when they all failed to sail the course.

    The race committee protested the boats following a report from the umpires. They offered no defense at the hearing and were all disqualified for breaking rule 28.1. The teams in question scored no points for those races.

    Wag

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rules of an appendix always apply see RRS introduction.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As in fleet racing, a rule 28.1 infringement may be protested by a competitor, the race committee or the protest committee (rule 60). If a competitor protests the umpire may not impose a penalty, a hearing is required (D2.2a) .An umpire may report an infringement to either protest committee or race committee who may decide to protest. Rule 61.1b applies. As this is not an umpire initiated penalty the black flag is not used to signal the umpires intention.

    If the race committee scores the race using D3.1b, on the basis of its own observation or an umpire's report then the competitor (or his team) may request redress if they believe that rule 28.1 was not broken.

    A similar incident happened to me recently, except that only 3 boats did not round a mark, 2 from 1 team and 1 from another. Unfortunately, as I was umpiring the race on my own I was unable to confirm whether 2 of the boats returned to round the mark. I reported the incident and the protest committee decided on a re-sail.

    The boat that I was certain had not rerounded the mark was, later in the race, involved in an incident that was protested. I penalised the boat that I was certain had infringed 28.1 under 22.2 as, having not completed an earlier leg of the course, by rounding the mark on the required side, she had altered course to interfere with a boat on another leg.

    Gordon

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mike B has a point. Going by the book, which is what we are supposed to do, the results of the races would be as the finishing orders. It did go against the grain, though, to award a win to a team none of whom sailed the course. That would have put them ahead of some other teams in the round robbin.

    Wag

    ReplyDelete

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