KWS; Kleine Sneekweek

One of my local clubs (KWS) organizes a four day event each year from Ascension day until the following Sunday. I've been going to events outside my country for the last couple of years, but this year I decided to stay and do some PC-work at the "Kleine Sneekweek"
I've started up the work this morning by getting all the paperwork ready and after that was finished, I thought it would be nice to give you a virtual tour of our regatta centre:

It's a compact building on the edge of the lake; this is the view when you walk from the ferry.

Protest-room 1 (my work room for the next couple of days)

Hallway connecting protest rooms and information desk, all on the ground flour; to the right toilets and left the stairs

Information desk, with Fronie & Alet

This room covers the left-half of the building with a work bench and three information windows.

Same windows from the outside.
The covers protect against rain but also cover the windows at night.

The 'tower' with finishing rooms and terrace.

Second floor, scoring desk in a room separated from the club room with screens

The club-room

The other quarter of the club room with a small coffee-bar
and access to the front terrace

The terrace in front.

With a view over our lake: Sneekermeer.

Looking back toward the ferry, you see the restaurant
and partly the marina for smaller boats.

Two ladies from scoring and finishing looking at the starts, before their task is beginning

Same terrace, looking the other way. A brand new harbour for bigger boats...

The lower of the two finishing rooms.
The finishing marks still have to be lined up.
These rooms have been raised half a floor so that if the terrace is occupied
and full of guests, the view is still unhindered.

Corner window of the same finishing room.
Note: no corner stiles!

Third floor looking at the corner of the second finishing room on top of the first.
That way two separate teams can watch the same line.

Looking up at the tower from behind on the second back terrace.

I'm standing on the back terrace on level three looking at the marina

And snapping a picture looking down at the front terrace

The highest view. Can you see the starting vessel?

Ko- building /electrician / manager - should have cleared
the wires, but at least everything is working with new speakers.

Looking the other way with Sneek in the far background (my home town)

KWS-Flag

I tried to zoom in a little, to snap the starting vessel,
but it's to far away today.
It should be in the middle of the white cluster of sails.

This year the island got a little bigger, because the new (bigger boat) marina
was finished. Two 'Regenbogen' just leave to go to the start.

The box with signal flags... in case we need to signal from the tower.
On the third floor hallway

Going back down the staircase, along the wall the plates
from almost every year. Each year a picture is handpainted on 40 plates
and awarded to the winner of the Sneekweek.

And almost back on the ground floor.

This concludes our virtual tour.
Please leave any tips at the box next to the exit....

The 3 least understood Racing Rules of Sailing.

DYT, D-BASL & DHA!


I've restricted the number of least understood rules to three, because Tillerman instructed me to do that in his group writing announcement, but actually I sometimes think the title should be "the 91 least known Racing Rules of Sailing". Well, please forgive me, that's what I see on occasions watching a fleet race. Okay, maybe not 91, but 91 minus four or five. Port and Starboard and other basic RoW rules seem to have been absorbed by a slight majority, but not by many more.

I wonder if we should introduce a sort of 'driving licence' for regatta sailors. You can't participate in traffic, if you don't know the rules. Fortunately most contacts don't end up in personal injuries and only minor damage, unlike on the road. But the rules appliance is appalling in some fleets. I don't want to police sailors for every rules-infringement, other then with umpiring a match - or team race. But we are getting there fast, if I read the developments correctly...

Therefore I have chosen three rules you should DEFINITELY understand:

Basic Principle:
SPORTSMANSHIP AND THE RULES
Competitors in the sport of sailing are governed by a body of rules that they are expected to follow and enforce. A fundamental principle of sportsmanship is that when competitors break a rule they will promptly take a penalty, which may be to retire.
DO YOUR TURNS.

DYT

Rule 2: FAIR SAILING
A boat and her owner shall compete in compliance with recognized principles of sportsmanship and fair play. A boat may be penalized under this rule only if it is clearly established that these principles have been violated. A disqualification under this rule shall not be excluded from the boat’s series score.
DON'T BE A SORE LOOSER.

D-BASL

Rule 14:
AVOIDING CONTACT
A boat shall avoid contact with another boat if reasonably possible. However, a right-of-way boat or one entitled to room or mark-room
(a) need not act to avoid contact until it is clear that the other boat is not keeping clear or giving room or mark-room, and
(b) shall not be penalized under this rule unless there is contact that causes damage or injury.
DON'T HIT ANYBODY.

DHA

If you enter a regatta you 'sign' a contract with all other sailors and the RC. The conditions of that contract are written down in the Sailing Instructions. Those include the RRS. What if someone didn't abide by a contract in your 'normal' live. You would scream bloody hell and say something, wouldn't you?
Or even worse. By breaking the rules you shout to all others: "I'm not going to keep my promises because I don't want to loose"

When all is said and done, it's only a sport. I understand it is taken very seriously by some (me) and a favourite and passionate pastime by others (me again). But to paraphrase one of the ground layers of the current rules, Paul Elvstrom:
"It is not worth winning a race if you to loose the respect of your fellow sailors by infringing the rules"

You might even be surprised!  Knowing the rules will improve your ability to interact with your fellow sailors on the water. Knowing your rights and obligations is definitely going to boost your confidence and ability to concentrate on sailing faster.

Please, learn a few rules and sail by them!

J.

Fact Finding Friday on Tuesday| 011 Xanadu Xylophonist v Zagreb Zitherplayer

From “The Room” by Brass

Introduction

The aim of this series is to practice judges' skills in writing Facts Found, Conclusions and Rules Applicable, and Decisions as required by rule 65.1. These are not intended to be 'difficult' rules problems: concentrate on the writing skills. You are not expected to 'discuss' the rules or the scenarios, or enter into 'what-if' considerations. I suggest you write against the clock, and include a note of your time taken when you post your answers on LTW, to compare with others.

Hearing and Evidence

You are the scribe for the protest committee of the LTW Yacht Club, which races in Port Liberty Roads. You have received a written protest, decided it is valid, and have heard both parties and witnesses.

You have listed Facts Found and the protest committee members have agreed to endorse the attached diagram.

	Legend Orange:Xanadu Xylophonist Purple:Zagreb Zitherplayer

Facts Found

1. Xanadu Xylophonist and Zagreb Zitherplayer were sailing close hauled on starboard tack towards a shoreline, ending in a point that was a mark of the course to be left to port.

2. Xanadu Xylophonist was to leeward and advanced on Zagreb Zitherplayer.

3. Zagreb Zitherplayer was fetching the point.

4. Xanadu Xylophonist hailed for water to tack and clear the point. Receiving no response from Zagreb Zitherplayer, Xanadu Xylophonist repeated her hail.

5. Zagreb Zitherplayer replied 'Fetching' and did not change course.

6. Xanadu Xylophonist hailed 'protest' and displayed a red flag.

7. Xanadu Xylophonist eased her sails then luffed head to wind to loose speed, then tacked behind Zagreb Zitherplayer.

8. Zagreb Zitherplayer fetched the point.

Protest Committee's Assessment of the Evidence

Your fellow protest committee members agree that safety required Xanadu Xylophonist to make a substantial course change to avoid the obstruction and that Zagreb Zitherplayer made no other hail.

Problem

Write Conclusions and Rules Applicable, and the Decision for this protest.
Please post your effort on LTW, for us all to share and learn. Don't be shy.

 

(This post was originally planned for Friday the 15th of May, but due to me being unable to get online it got sidetracked…. Original scheduling will resume (hopefully) on the 22th.)

Rules Answer for Tillerman

Tillerman asked a Rules Question on his blogpost today:

Here's a question for all you Racing Rules of Sailing experts out there…
When do you have to sail your proper course?


There are five rules where proper course is mentioned.
Most sailors will know the first one:

Rule 17 ON THE SAME TACK; PROPER COURSE
If a boat clear astern becomes overlapped within two of her hull lengths to leeward of a boat on the same tack, she shall not sail above her proper course while they remain on the same tack and overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat. This rule does not apply if the overlap
begins while the windward boat is required by rule 13 to keep clear.

The rule does not restrict your course in sailing lower then your proper course….. therefore in answer to the question: You don't have to sail your proper course.

Rule 18.1 When Rule 18 Applies
Rule 18 applies between boats when they are required to leave a mark on the same side and at least one of them is in the zone. However, it does not apply
(b) between boats on opposite tacks when the proper course at the mark for one but not both of them is to tack,

Again, it does not say you have to sail your proper course….

Rule 18.4 Gybing
When an inside overlapped right-of-way boat must gybe at a mark to sail her proper course, until she gybes she shall sail no farther from the mark than needed to sail that course. Rule 18.4 does not apply at a gate mark.

This rule restricts you distance to the mark…
You have to gybe if you are inside overlapped right-of-way boat. You can sail higher or even to the wrong side if you want… So agian, in answer to the question, you don't have to sail your proper course….

Rule 18.5 Exoneration
When a boat is taking mark-room to which she is entitled, she shall be exonerated
(b) if, by rounding the mark on her proper course, she breaks a rule of Section A or rule 15 or 16.

Again, no restrictions, but if you break one of the rules mentioned, you better be on a proper course. But if you don't break any of the rules, you can sail wherever you want…

Rule 23.2 Except when sailing her proper course, a boat shall not interfere with a boat taking a penalty or sailing on another leg.

Interfering with a boat on another leg or taking a penalty may only happen if you sail on your proper course. But nothing in this fifth rule, restricts you from sailing another course…. as long as you don't interfere with another boat.

In answer to the question I would have to say: According to the RRS, you don't have to sail your proper course…. there's always another (worse) course if you want it.

Flog the Blog Day (18)

I’ve returned from Venice – starting my journey very early in the morning and went straight into a full workday and a committee meeting this evening.

I don’t have much energy left to write a special FTBD-post.

Most of you know what I’m asking, so please don’t hesitate to leave any comments on the blog, be it about layout or style or about content or anything

I’m preparing for a couple of bigger local events and am somewhat behind at the moment. I’m hoping to catch up in the next week(s).

One last observation about Venice I do want to include in this post. Perhaps some of you have deducted, I’m a fan of Terry Pratchett. Well, if there’s any city comparable to Ankh-Morpork on Earth, it is Venice.

With it’s narrow streets, nooks and bridges, very commercial multi-cultured inhabitants and hot (smelly) climate, it is unique. Walking through the alleyways at four o’clock in the morning, I was half expecting to cross the path of the late vampire returning home or a early dwarf going to his work…. But fortunately, Bruntolino was walking with me, so that shouldn’t have been a problem.

http://daftjunk.com/dw/Ankh-Morpork.html

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-map-191501770-map_of_venice-i

iShares Cup 2009 Venice | 05

We have a winner!
Gitane Extreme Groupe LCF Rothschild skippered by Yann Guichard, managed to score 140 points. Second was James Spithill and his crew in BMW Oracle Racing and third, surprisingly a newcummer, Renaissance skippered by Loick Peyron.

Venice is definitely a city to come back to; If they open up the racing to have a little more time we could have done 8 races today. We managed seven. Very wel done by Tim and his team.
Not easy in these reaching conditions. It was all about reaching the first mark and then the train started. Only Chris steering in Oman Red (Masirah) was able to take advantage of rule 18.2(c). And get an inside overlap on the front boat because they couldn't tack after passing the mark.

Most penalties were again at the start and with mark roundings. The new definition of overlap must still give some boats problems....

I'm typing this after the event and prizegiving. Together with David I'll spent one more night - although very short - in Venice by flying home tomorrow at 06:25.. It means we will have to get up at four to catch the bus at five.... And walking trough Venice for half an hour in the early hours of the morning.

I was again umpire 2 today with Thibaut. The most challenging part was to find a good place to be at the fourth mark in a special E course the RC came up with after the first race. It was reaching up and down in that first one. With the train of boats you have a hard time getting outside and making sure there were no mark touchings. Inside we could do rule 18 and 13 perfectly well, but we missed the markpassing after tack. Even getting very close to the mark was hard because then we had no oppertunity to bail out fast enough in case someone wasn't given mark-room and had to pass on the wrong side.

It was a great event and if I may make a personal observation, I felt definitly more relaxed then last year. Knowing what is expected and being certain of the rules makes difference.

I'm looking foreward to Hyeres in one month already.

iShares Cup 2009 Venice | 04

Saturday on the water with Jon was exhilarating. We pretty much saw things the same way and had a good day on the water. When the breeze picked up a couple of hairy escapes - with full throttle, but we managed not to be hit by any Xtreme 40.

We started at the right side of the start line and went up and down with the boats. Up was easy enough, if you looked out for port tackers, but going downwind they gybed at any unpredictable place.

The first race we penalized some port tackers for dubious crossings, only marginally making it. The were not very happy but it did send out a message to all boats that port would HAVE to keep clear. I did the driving and Jon did the flags and whistles. He sure has a loud voice which carries.

It's now Sunday morning 10:53 and it promises to be a hot and sunny day. There's little wind and we hope it will last. As previously we only have a small window to do the actual racing. Between 14:30 and 17:30 the water is closed off.

As to the rules we looked up what sailors can do if the helicopter - who's due to be filming today - interferes with there racing. There's a sentence in addendum Q addressing this.

"A boat may not base a request for redress on a claim that an action by an official boat or helicopter was improper. The jury may decide to consider redress in such circumstances if it believes that an official boat or helicopter, including an umpire boat, may have seriously interfered with a competing boat."
In other words, only if the Jury thinks it has had an influence, any sort of redress could be awarded.

One thing more: The helicopter has to display a flag to be identified as part of "boats" under control by the organising authority. I wonder how they will manage that.

iShares Cup 2009 Venice | 03

You must be wondering what I'm doing! It's very frustrating at the moment, I'm not able to connect to any wifi network. It's now 12:49 on Friday and no connection since yesterday evening.

I'll keep writing and will post as soon as there's an opportunity.

Venice is spectacular. A very special place with old and new mixed together, boats everywhere, big and small, official and working, choppy water and white coloured water (not to clean). I feel privileged to have to have the opportunity to come here.

This morning Thibaut (yes, the guy who writes Boat Scenario) an I went out with the ribs. We had to drive trough the big canal to get some fuel for our umpire boats. We went past all the famous sights - with piazza San Marco as the most prominent one - all packed with people.
Water taxis left and right, but no vaporettas (that's the public transport boats - instead of buses), who are on strike today.
Cruise ships 8 decks high sliding by, between two tugs, carabinieri and police all over the place. One thing we must definitely do is put up an Italian courtesy flag!

This afternoon we are going racing in very narrow water, a little more to the east then I showed on the map yesterday. The channel where we can race is cordoned of between 1430 and 1730 and only 200 meters wide… Hopefully we will have an up- and downwind course.

Rules. Well a lot of changes to the SSI, amendments left and notices right. A bit on the heavy sight I would say. A lot for all the sailors to soak up. We didn't have many questions, but that's more to do with lack of understanding then anything else, I suspect. I'll ask for permission to post them, since a couple of you have been mailing me asking this

Friday 19:01; still no connection. *&^*&$&^@&^#
We went out and had five races. Pretty good in these light conditions. The canal was completely cordoned of and all the traffic was directed to a side canal. Only very big ferry's and cruise ships were allowed to pass. In between we did our course A and B races…
Shortened to two laps to stay within target time of 15 minutes.

Today I went with David and we did the windward roundings. Staying pretty much up there. A couple 18.3, a couple Port-Starboard and other incidents.
In the fifth race there was a collision between two boats. Rule 11. One going downwind to the finish, one still on the beat going upwind.
We had a pretty fundamental discussion about rule 14 in the hearing afterwards. What does the rule actual say? When should the keep-clear act to avoid the collision?
One direction is that the keep clear boat always has an option before going into this situation to go another way. Not choose the "risky" option and thereby avoiding the collision. Besides breaking the appropriate right of way rule - he then, in this school of thought, would also break rule 14

The other approach to this issue is that we only look at rule 14 at the moment the collision course is established and find out what a boat has done from that moment on. Both boats need to be scrutinized from that exact moment but not before.
The keep clear boat has an obligation to avoid contact from that moment forward. The right of way boat only after is becomes clear that the keep clear boat isn't keeping clear and a collision is imminent.
I'll get back to this issue later this month.

Gitane, the leader of the regatta at the moment. I've lot's more pictures, but those will have to wait. In the mean time visit the official website: iShares Event Site

It's now Saturday 18:34 and since I'm finally been able to go on-line myself I've posted this. I'll try to keep you updated from now on. But tomorrow is already the last day! Time flies when you are having fun.

iShares Cup 2009 Venice | 02 (NOT)

I seem to have no luck getting onto the network (wifi) at Venice. I´m writing this on a borrowed computer but will have little time to post. You will have to be a little patient and wait until I´m back home before I can post properly.
Fact Finding Friday also will be late a couple of days due to this. Sorry about this.
J.

Sunday Rules Snap |3 on You Tube

For those of you who want to do some close quarter umpiring: