BUSA Playoffs Birmingham

Twas a pleasure to be working with the old team of Umpires. Greg doesn't often stray from Spinnaker and Caroline usually does Match Racing. Her comments were therefore interesting - the main one was " Haven't they heard of Rule 16?"

I believe I have commented before how over enthusiastic students get about bumping into the other boat. It's very tempting at the windward mark not to let that port tack boat cross - you are on starboard and have right of way - problem is that 16.1 says you cannot steer into his back end as soon as the mark gets out of the way. Similarly on the starting line it's no good coming in close to leeward of someone saying "Up, Up, Up" if they are stationary or slow moving they can't go up. Hit them at your peril!

Also at the windward mark we had a number of incidents where boats tacked in the zone and then said "no water - you can't come in there" to another boat. This gets really complicated but at the end of the day it is probably likely that the windward boat should be giving room - saying it will not give room doesn't help it's case. Remember Rule 14 continues to apply - we probably don't give enough twin penalties.

Time for coffee - might add more later