ISAF Q&A’s update August 2010 and beyond

Better make up for another backlog. The list of Q&A’s has been growing again. Pick up the latest booklet and you are good to go up until Q&A 10 – 029;

ISAF Racing Rules Q&A's Booklet August 10 2010

The latest bunch since the last update are:

D 6 Q&A 10-024 The rights of an OCS boat that is sailing the course.
B 18 Q&A 10-025 Clarifications about Mark-Room and rule 18.3.
M 8 Q&A 10-026 Paddle test and the exceptions in rule 42.
M 9 Q&A 10-027 Proper Course and sail configuration.
J 10 Q&A 10-028 Protest flag display when multiple protests in a race.
J 11 Q&A 10-029 Redress for incidents that happen before the warning signal.

And then two who are not yet in the booklet, but have appeared since August 10:

J 12 Q&A 10-030 About the right to appeal a measurement protest decision
J 13 Q&A 10-031 Damage that is obvious to the boats

 

The last one will need some creative questions if one boat denies knowing there was damage after contact. Don’t hesitate to involve the protesting boat to come up with a solid argument why the damage was obvious to both. They are the ones who did not raise the red flag promptly or hailed protest at the first reasonable opportunity. They should have reasons why a PC/Jury should accept 61.1(a)(3) and find the protest valid.

ISAF Rule 42 Quiz

Rule 42 deals with propulsion.

Most judges have been involved more or less in on-the-water judging of rule 42. In order to get a consistent level ISAF publishes Interpretations of rule 42. Some say the interpretations are very difficult, but like in most things, it is a matter of how much you study them.

The latest help to understand these interpretations appeared on the ISAF web site yesterday:
A brand new Quiz about rule 42: RULE 42 QUIZ

The object of the exercise is to first make the quiz and then have a look at the RULE 42 QUIZ ANSWERS
And no cheating.....

Catching up on Cases III

A couple more. I’m increasing the number per, otherwise we never catch up.

As usual, click on the Week link to read the cases.

Case	Rule	Rules description	Week link
83	49.2	Crew Position	W30
82	62.1(a) Def.	Redress Finish	W31
81	14 15 18.2(b) 18.2(c)	Avoiding Contact Acquiring Right of Way Mark-Room: Giving Mark-Room Mark-Room: Giving Mark-Room	W32
80	60 61.2(b) 62.1(a) A5	Right to Protest; Right to Request Redress or Rule 69 Action Protest Requirements: Protest Contents Redress Scores Determined by the Race Committee	W33

Rulesblogs

In today's post I'm linking to two new rules blogs;

The first one is from Matt Knowles (USA). On his profile he notes being a team racer, a moth sailor, member of the US SAILING Racing Rules Committee and Rules nerd.
He has also been writing on Sailgroove in the past with interesting pieces about the rules.
He has titled his blog: Unruly -  perhaps because he's very apt in finding the flaws in the current rules.


The second one is from Nigel Vick (GBR). RYA Coach Assessor, National Umpire and ISAF International Judge. He writes about his experiences as an Umpire, Judge and Coach.
I liked his latest post about messing up.
Go and have a look at: Nigel and Sailing

(pillow)Case of the Week (36) – 77;

(This is an instalment in a series of blogposts about the ISAF Call book 2009-2012 with amendments for 2010. All calls are official interpretations by the ISAF committees on how the Racing Rules of Sailing should be used or interpreted. The calls are copied from the Call book, only the comments are written by me.)

Case 77

Rule 12, On the Same Tack, Not Overlapped
Rule 14, Avoiding Contact
Rule 31, Touching a Mark
Definitions, Keep Clear

Contact with a mark by a boat’s equipment constitutes touching it. A boat obligated to keep clear does not break a rule when touched by a right-of-way boat’s equipment that moves unexpectedly out of normal position.

Assumed Facts
Boats A and B approached the leeward mark with spinnakers set. A rounds the mark clear ahead of B. A has difficulty lowering her spinnaker and, as she assumes a close-hauled course, her spinnaker guy trails astern by some 30 feet (9 m) and drags across part of the mark above the water. Later, when the mark is about five lengths astern of B, the boats are sailing close hauled on port tack and B is 20 feet (6 m) astern of A. A is still having difficulties handling her spinnaker and the head of her spinnaker unexpectedly streams astern and strikes B's headstay.


Question
What rules apply during these incidents and does any boat break a rule?

Answer
When A’s spinnaker guy drags across the mark, she breaks rule 31. A boat touches a mark within the meaning of rule 31 when any part of her hull, crew or equipment comes in contact with the mark. The fact that her equipment touches the mark because she has manoeuvring or sail-handling difficulties does not excuse her breach of the rule.


When contact occurs later between the two boats, rule 18 no longer applies. Because A’s spinnaker is not in its normal position, the boats are not overlapped and, therefore, rule 12 applies. That rule requires B to keep clear of A, which she is doing because nothing B did or failed to do required A ‘to take avoiding action’ (see the definition Keep Clear). This is shown by the fact that the contact between them results exclusively from A’s equipment moving unexpectedly out of normal position. Therefore, B did not break rule 12.

Rule 14 also applied. A broke rule 14 by causing contact that she could have avoided. However, because there was no damage or injury, A cannot be penalized. It was not reasonably possible for B to avoid contact with A’s spinnaker as it streamed astern, and so B did not break rule 14.


Note that Case 91 also addresses an incident involving equipment out of its normal position.

USSA 1980/232



The protest decision in this case would be: Protest upheld, Right of Way Boat A breaks rule 14, but is not penalized because there was no damage. Boat B did not break any rules.

Kiel 4; Day five - REVISITED

When I was in Kiel I wrote a post about a request for redress by one of the teams in Woman Match racing. You can read the original here:
Kiel 4; Day five

Because of a mistake in the invitations the second Swedish team who should have been invited according to the NOR amendment #1 (the Sailing World Cup Standard NOR) was not, instead DEN2 was invited and they accepted.

Two days into the event SWE2 lodged a request for redress, claiming that their series scores in the World Cup was significantly worsened by not being able to sail in Kiel.

A lot of comments on the original post declared this request to be invalid because of two factors: SWE2 was no competitor and it should have been filed before racing started or within a reasonable time after the entry list was finalized.

Swe2 might not have been a competitor in this event, but she was certainly a competitor in the World Cup Series. If she would have requested participation before racing had started, there would have been no issue in validity in that regard.

So that leaves extending the time. The Jury decided that SWE2 filed the request as soon as she became aware of the mistake and extended the time limit accordingly.

The most difficult was to find out what the redress should be.

We couldn’t stop the tournament, kick out DEN2 (who had done nothing wrong) and start again. We couldn’t add another competitor to sail this late in the round robins. And, perhaps the biggest hurdle, we had no jurisdiction over the World Cup ranking list.

You can read the solution the International Jury came up with, if you have a look at Protest 29 SWE2 v OA.pdf.

LTW Readers Q&A | 045;

Another one today from Rick Burgess from the USA:

Jos,

While driving across the USA on our way to the Star North American Championships in California lots of things were discussed, but we were
in total disagreement on the following rules situation.

Sailing a windward/leeward course with NO off-set, fleet racing, and port rounding. Boat A approaches the mark on starboard and boat B approaches it on port. The question is does boat A have the right to round the mark and sail a course to the leeward mark even though boat B is in between? (we are talking both boats are right on the their lay lines and B is probably 11/2 to 2 boat lengths back).

I know A has to avoid contact but is the onus on B to give A room to sail her proper course? And if A has to alter course to avoid B is B in the wrong?

Thank you
Rick Burgess

Dear Rick,

I’ve drawn your situation in Boat Scenario and hope this is what you mean:

Let’s analyze the situation step by step:

In position 1 boat B (orange) is on port and boat A (purple) is on starboard. Boat B is keeping clear. No issue.

In position 2 boat B is still port and boat A has changed course but is still on starboard. Because of the course change, boat A has a restriction under rule 16.1 to give room to boat B to keep clear. She’s doing this. If both boats would continue on a straight course from position 2, nothing would happen. Boat B is keeping clear. No issue

In position 3 boat A has changed course again (or has continued to change course). Now there’s a collision course established. From that moment, boat B must do everything possible to keep clear as boat on port and boat A must give her room to do that.

If boat A changed her course so close that the only option for B is to continue – luffing or bearing away would make things worse – then boat A has the obligation to avoid the contact. She then clearly has not given boat B enough room to keep clear.

But if B could bear away and she did not do so, thereby forcing A to luff to avoid the contact, she’s breaking rule 10.

Boat A has the right to sail around the mark even if boat B is in between, but she must comply with rule 16.1

 

I understand that Stars mostly go very deep on the run. They almost sail downwind. Because boat A is on a different leg of the course, she may not interfere with a boat on another leg of the course unless she sailing on her proper course.

From your story I cannot find as fact that she is not doing this. Boat A might want to gybe to port to go to the left side of the leg. So she’s not breaking 23.2 either, by steering this course.

Boat B has no obligation to anticipate that boat A will round the mark this way and has no ‘extra’ obligation to let A sail on a proper course.

But boat B must do everything to keep clear from the moment the collision course is established and boat A must give her room to do so.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.

Cheers,

J.

LTW Readers Q&A | 044; On the Same Tack

A question from Bill MacNeill:

This happened last weekend during racing.  Boat A had rounded the leeward mark and was proceeding on starboard tack to the windward mark.  Boat B was coming downwind to the leeward mark under spinnaker on starboard tack, she was not within 2 boat lengths of the mark.  Boat A hailed Boat B that they had right of way.  Boat A continued, close hauled.  Boat B made no attempt to keep clear and said that she had no helm to avoid contact.  Boat A had to drastically alter course to try to avoid contact, which did occur with no damage to either boat.  As an observer I advised Boat B that they were in violation of RRS.
They did nothing to absolve themselves, perform a penalty turn or anything. 
I feel that boat B was in violation of rules 12 and 14, am I correct?  Your answer would be appreciated.  Thank you.
Best regards,
Bill MacNeill
P.S. Boat A did a penalty turn, just in case.


Dear Bill,
I think you are on the right track.
As a windward boat, boat B definitely broke rule 11 (not 12) by not keeping clear of A - the right of way boat. The fact that they might be unable to steer is no excuse under the rules!
They also broke rule 14 by not avoiding the contact - when that was reasonably possible to do so.
There's one other rule to consider - rule 23.2. Because one boat rounded the mark and the other had not - they were sailing on different legs of the course
Because boat A - close hauled - was on her proper course in the beat to windward, she therefore was entitled to sail in the path of boat B.
Boat A did not break rule 14, she did everything reasonably possible to avoid the contact after it became clear that boat B was not going to keep clear. But even if it was found that she did not, she's not to be penalized because there was no damage.
You also wrote that boat A did A penalty turn. In this case unnecessary in my opinion, but if she was not sure - for instance about complying with rule 14 - and she wanted to take a penalty, rule 44.1 dictates a two turns penalty.
Unless that was changed in the Sailing Instructions.
J.

Catching Up on Cases II

This weeks (pillow)Cases: Click on the W-link to read the post.

 

87	10 14 Def.	On Opposite Tacks Avoiding Contact Keep Clear	W28
86		Deleted in the Casebook
85	61.1 86.1(c) Def.	Protest Requirements: Informing the Protestee Changes to the Racing Rules Rule	W29
84		Deleted in the Casebook

LANGWEER 2010

GWS (Grouster Watersport Schouw) ready for the start….

 

KWV Langweer, one of my local clubs, organizes an annual regatta for open one-class sailboats. Last weekend we did the 151^st edition. It was difficult this year. In response to comments from previous years I added a fourth race (two each day) and shortened the races itself. That is a busy schedule for us. Two times eleven classes to start, every five minutes (with two breaks of five minutes). But with enough volunteers you can accomplish a lot.

What made it more difficult was that the weather was not very, well, consistent..

Showers and wind one minute and calm and lack of wind the next. Add the threat of thunder and lightning, made me look for the N-flag on both days.

On Saturday the rain-detection radar on the internet predicted a very nasty one at the end of our first starting cycle. We postponed the last two classes and told them to seek a little shelter. Monitoring the approach of the dark clouds and counting the distance for the next 45 minutes made us realize that the hart of the cloud would pass the lake at least for a couple of kilometers.

We recalled the last two classes and started them an hour and fifteen minutes late.

 

On Sunday the weather predicted was that the really bad stuff would come late afternoon/evening.

But as always a few ‘front running clouds’ made life difficult. We measured Beaufort 7 in one of them.

Every sailor knows that stronger wind itself is not a problem. You rig your boat for it and adapt your sailing. But sudden unpredictable gusts are killers. You almost have no time to respond and every mistake results in punishment immediately. I’m afraid some of the boats did score DNF’s due to capsizing.

Well we sent out all our safety-boats, towed the unlucky boats to shore and continued racing with the rest. I did however shortened the race to just under an hour. That was enough I thought.

My brother found time to shoot a couple of pictures from the starting vessel. You can have a look by clicking on: Langweer 2010

The Regenbogen had a hard time coping with the gusts… only two of the original eight showed up for the last race. But these two had a great race!
The photo also shows you also who won and who came second in the series.

We use to have such nice late summer balmy weekends….. ( deep sigh.)

J.