Hedwich send me the following query:
Last weekend we had an event for Finns and Stars at our club. The race schedule was for three races on Saturday and two on Sunday. During the first race two stars were way ahead of the rest and they collided (port-starboard) and the right of way boat broke his mast. The boat who broke his mast had already rounded the last mark and sailed a close hauled course, the second boat still had to round the mark. The boat on port acknowledged his misstake en left the race immediately and retired. As the first two races were sailed back to back, the star with the broken mast repaired his boat as fast as possible, but missed the second race as well. He did sail, and won, the third race. He asked for redress for races one and two.
We granted him redress: average points out of race three, four and five for race one and two.
And then.... there was no wind on Sunday.
So this boat won the event by just sailing, and winning, one race. It doesn't feel good. I know we cannot anticipate on the wheather, but in this kind of short series maybe we should?
What do others think of this?
Well, Hedwich. there's an ISAF Q&A on this subject. It states that for no more then half of the races redress can be given. The score of the boat should be at least half be calculated from actual sailed races.
In your case the Star should have been granted redress for one race. Scored DNC in the second and it's actual sailed score in the third.
You shouldn't feel to stressed though. By the results the boat did sail it deserved first place.
Anybody else?
I'm writing this on the public computer at St.Petersburg Yacht Club. Haven't been able to get online as of yet. Will try again later and hopefully give my comments on the closed poll and this event.
J.
I wish people would stop quoting the ISAF Q&As as saying what you "can" and "can't" do. They are merely advice, and quite often quite poor advice in my opinion. I would give no more credence to the conclusion of a Q&A than I would a intelligent conversation with another reasonable rules person.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested to know if the Jury had a hearing under rule 14. I see the port tacker admitted his error - presumably he retired from the race as 44 cannot apply here - but rule 14 also needs to be considered against the RoW boat before redress can be given.
ReplyDeleteYou refer to Q&A 2007-001 which can be found at: http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/QA2007001-[6783].pdf
ReplyDeleteAs a previous commenter states, the Q&A are guidelines only and have no standing in the rules (as a Case would). Therefore, the protest committee is still tasked with making "as fair an arrangement as possible for all boats affected, whether or not they asked for redress."
In Answer 1, the Q&A states: "Although the protest committee did not break any rule, its decision in awarding the redress was not the fairest arrangement for all boats affected. In this case, allowing a boat to use average scores for half of the counting races in the series is
not fair to the other boats."
Operative words..."in this case"
In the Star regatta, the boat that was dismasted was well ahead of the fleet and on the final leg. The protest committee could (should) have awarded them redress of first place in Race 1. Then in the second race, awarded them the average of all other races, including Race 1. They should not have to anticipate a lack of racing on the next day. Seems like the PC made a good decision and I'd be surprised if there was much dissent in the fleet.
However, if the case was that a boat only sails one race, then gets dismasted and misses the next four, it would not be the fairest arrangement for all boats to grant that boat redress for four races based on only one. Each situation is different.