Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Going to two Boats

Whilst strongly discouraged, some University events drop to two boat team racing when they have a breakdown which would impact the schedule. 

In league situations this will not make a lot of difference but the HLS system relies much more heavily on points to break ties, so the scoring system becomes more important. Jo Lucas suggests that with the HLS system you should double the team score and add 1point to the losing team. This makes the score for a team with 1,2 equivalent to a 1,2,3 win with the losers taking 4,5,6 equivalent. 1,3 is a less deserving win and scores the same as a 1,2 win in UKTRA, while there is no difference with 2,3.Whatever, system is used it is going to be a compromise.

 Result  
 UKTRA  Lucas
  1,  2  8  6
  3,  4  13  15
  1,  3  9  8
  2,  4  12  13
  2,  3  10  10
  1, 4  11  11

There is an argument that the team with the broken boat should have the opportunity to get the sailors in their broken boat into one of their good boats, should they so desire, since the other team have the opportunity to drop their worst sailor, when they go down to two boats, but that is another argument.    

            

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Why the difference?

Team Racing Calls H5 and E12 appear to have different interpretations.

H5 says that when a boat rounds a mark wide her proper course may cease to be close to the mark before she has left the mark on the required side. In such a case 18.2(b) still applies but the mark room to which she is entitled no longer includes room to sail to the mark. 

E12 says that when a boat "sails beyond where she needed room to round the mark as necessary to sail the course, the outside boat is no longer required to give room"

E12 is dealing with room to tack, and the diagram in H5 has the outside boat abeam of the mark at all times. 

The question is should the decision be the same, if in H5, the boat had continued downwind, such that she was no longer abeam of the mark, but past it in a downwind direction? ie a line abeam from her transom was clearly past the mark? Does 18.2(b) switch back on when she turns towards the next mark? or is 18.2 off and she has to stay clear of boats that have right of way?

Thursday, February 2, 2023

Wrong Decision

 I owe an apology to somebody. We made a wrong decision at the Warmer.

There was an incident pre-start. Protest was shouted - we paused and reached for our flag and there was a simultaneous display of our green flag and the boat shouting "Spinning". 

Seeing the green flag the boat decided not to spin and we didn't take any further actions despite the protesting boat complaining and saying that he now had to spin. That boat was correct and we failed to apply Appendix D 1.3 (b)  Which says "When a boat clearly indicates that she will take a penalty under rule 44.1, she shall take that penalty"

So now we know that it is not a sportsmanship issue - there is a clear rule on the matter. 

The boat misunderstood the green flag - which doesn't necessarily mean no rule was broken, it can mean we didn't see it or we disagree about who broke the rule. It could have been that they saw me reaching for the flag and assumed they were about to get two turns and thought shouting spinning would have reduced the penalty. Also wrong - by the time we get out the red flag they would have had the opportunity to do their turns and it is now Umpire imposed and two turns.

Lesson learnt by this Umpire - next time a boat shouts spinning it had better spin.

My excuse is that D1.3(b) was a new rule introduced in 2021. Previously we had penalised boats that failed to spin under sportsmanship. The boat could have thought no rule had been broken and was trying to take an "insurance" spin. Is it then unsportsmanlike not to take the spin, when Umpires indicate there will be no penalty? That was our mindset, and it was wrong, so another apology.


Sunday, September 18, 2022

Culture

An actual happening at the Sailability British Keelboat League event in Cardiff.

The three RIBS were ready to set out. The Safety RIB, the Jury Rib and the Bosun RIB, when someone said "There's a boat out already, he won't have had permission to go out. "

The Safety RIB driver said " I hope they don't get into difficulties"

The Jury man said "Do we need to disqualify them?"

The Bosun said "I hope they don't break anything."

The man who made the original observation said "That shows how narrow your horizons are!"

Amusing, but I was already thinking about the culture of events, the way Match Racing will start quite early in the morning, 9am is not unusual. Team Racing will be  little more relaxed and aim for around 10, often not making it and Fleet Racing often starts around midday. Team Racers bring their own Umpire Flags, Match Race Umpires expect flags to be provided by the organisers. Having seen disabled sailors in the US, they expect to be treated no differently from ordinary sailors, if they are not ready in time they will take responsibility. In the UK we will wait if a disabled sailor has a problem, and they would probably expect us to wait.

All of these little things, and generalisations, go to make up the culture of an event. It's good to be sensitive of the culture, but sometimes very difficult to make decisions that follow the culture. 

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

An Evil Thought

 International officials are really not used to wearing their Kill Cords. 

One official on a recent course assured me that if I fell out he would come back and get me. Which was to ignore the possibility that we would all be thrown into the water and be dodging a rampant powerboat. 

The evil thought is that if World Sailing can justify the ramping up of penalties under Rule 42 for illegal propulsion (on the third penalty you are required to leave the event) Perhaps they could do the same thing for officials not wearing Kill Cords. A reminder for the first two occurrences but after the third occurrence at an event they would not be permitted to drive a powerboat at the event.

I do my best to always wear the kill cord and to switch the engine off when changing driver. Changing driver is probably the most dangerous time, as this is when an accidental trip can send you crashing into the throttle, resulting in you and your partner getting thrown into the water, with the kill cord attached to nothing but the boat. 

 

Monday, February 28, 2022

The Gybe-back

 We had an interesting incident at a recent event which has me thinking about the way rule 18 switches on and off during a gybeback.  The gybe -back typically occurs at mark 4, on a standard team racing S course, just before the final beat to the finish, so ignore mark numbering in the diagrams, the wind comes from the top of the diagrams which is where the finish is. Remember that the normal rules apply inside the zone but . . .

The problem is that 43.1(b) says that "When a boat is sailing within .. mark room to which she is entitled and ... she breaks a rule of Section A of Part 2, rule 15, 16, or 31 she is exonerated for her breach"

This means that the Umpires need to note when the boat is in the corridor leading to the mark.

In this diagram at position 5 the yellow boat is still within the corridor, as her boom has to clear the mark (ignore the diagram) so blue gets the penalty. However, in the scenario below we have to penalise yellow, as at position 5 she is outside the corridor to the mark and her alteration of course did not give blue room to keep clear. (OK the diagrams are not that clear but hopefully you get the point.)

Interesting, is the idea that the provisions of 18 switch on when the boat begins to turn and use the corridor. Consider this:-

The blue boat is keeping clear and had yellow held her course between positions 7 &8 would have passed clear of yellow. Yellow clearly altered in a manner which gave blue no chance to keep clear. However, since she has not yet passed the mark and her alteration was towards the mark she was using the room to which she was entitled. There was no breach of 15 as she remained right of way, is she exonerated for the breach of 16, even if the turn towards the mark was not completed?
There is, however, a get out for the blue boat in 43.1(a) since her infringement was as a consequence of yellow breaking 16 she is entitled to exonerated for her breach of rule 10.   

These complications don't occur when the inexperienced try the gybe-back outside the zone. They fail to understand the full power of the gybe-back done inside the zone and the exonerations available when this happens. 


Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Recovering Capsized boats

 Sailing dinghies capsize due to the wind, once capsized they are generally too involved in recovering the boat to worry about the wind but it can have a significant effect on how easy it is to recover the boat. One can excuse powerboat drivers for ignoring it , but again if they used it life could be so much easier, and the boat would be back in use much quicker.

The most obvious use of wind comes when a boat has inverted and the the centreboard has gone up into the case. The boat will generally lie across the wind. If you get the crew to stand on the leeward gunwale, the boat will begin to right. They can put their fingers into the slot to balance, but the object is to keep their weight on their feet, on the gunwale. The wind will assist this process and as the boat drifts downwind you will generally find that the end of the boom surfaces. THIS IS A GIANT LEVER!. If you, in the powerboat, can get hold of this you can lever the boat upright by working your way along the leach to the masthead. 


Once there it is essential that you control the righting, the boat will be downwind, so if you just throw it upright it is quite likely to just go straight over again. Either try and have the crew in a position to be scooped in as per an RYA Capsize recovery, OR walk it upright, keeping hold of the shroud as you work your way towards the boat.

The rig lying upwind is a problem even if the crew are recovering the boat. The most useful thing a powerboat can do in this situation is to get the boat head to wind. To do this put your bow into the bow of the capsized boat, have your crew grab the forestay and reverse upwind, so that the boat comes head to wind. The crew can right it and it might stay upright instead of flipping straight over as it would if you left it. Having your crew in the bow will assist in keeping your transom high and reduce the water taken on board your powerboat.


If the rig is stuck in the mud you have to get it out. Generally the wind will be pushing it deeper and deeper into the mud, otherwise the crew would have recovered it.  There are two approaches, you can try and rotate the boat so that the hull is no longer upwind, but you risk bending or breaking the mast. The other method is to pull the boat upwind and have the mast come out of the mud on the same trajectory as it went in. You might put your painter around the shroud and reverse upwind but often you don't get a result, due the inability to develop sufficient power in reverse. You can try getting the line astern, but then you have to be further away from the boat or your prop might be too close to the crew in the water and maintaining the correct angle becomes more difficult.  

Another method is to put your bow into the cockpit of the boat and push it out by going ahead. This gives you much more power but you need to be aware that your propeller is close to the mast and mainsail of the boat. The main is usually lying straight down due to the weight of he boom but you need to be careful. Once the mast is out of the mud it will begin to come up alongside your powerboat. Grab the mast, go into neutral, and lift it up, working your way to the masthead. Check the wind, before you start to right it by working back towards the boat lifting the mast over your head. You should have blown round but attempting to push a rig up against the wind is not good news, it's hard. Better to bring the rig round so that it is at least across the wind, being at the masthead should mean that your propeller is well away from the crew.

Finally don't forget that you do NOT want to chop up the sailors with your propeller. If they get close to the prop the quickest and safest way is to pull the kill cord. You will, of course, have checked that it works at the beginning of the day. Be aware that this applies if you are alongside a capsized boat, feet can easily trail under the boat towards your propeller, so know where the crew are!