Monday, August 2, 2010
Summer Race #2
Wednesday 7/28/2010
Puffy WSW breeze, 6-16 knots. Current was ebbing strong all night. A & B sailed from H to 24 to D, twice around. C sailed the same course once around.
When we arrived at the starting area, it was clear this was going to be an interesting start. The RC set a short line, with the boat end favored, and the current was sweeping boats towards the line. We decided to sail towards the start area on port and find a nice spot to approach the line. We knew from the current and other boats that we would be a bit early. We then tucked in behind a boat and approached the line on starboard with 30 seconds to go.
We had one boat come from behind and establish an overlap to leeward about a boat length away from us. Right before the start had sounded the mast man of the boat started yelling at us to take it up. I responded that their boat must head up and luff us before we would turn higher. It appeared they would have room to make a hard turn and clear our stern. While the mast man continued to tell us to go up, their boat was not turning up. Let’s stop here and review the rules.
First rule 11 applies. We were the windward boat, so we are required to keep clear.
11 ON THE SAME TACK, OVERLAPPED
When boats are on the same tack and overlapped, a windward boat shall keep clear of a leeward boat.
Keep Clear One boat keeps clear of another if the other can sail her course with no need to take avoiding action and, when the boats are overlapped on the same tack, if the leeward boat can change course in both directions without immediately making contact with the windward boat.
Notice that in the keep clear definition, we are only required to give enough room so that the leeward boat can change course and not immediately hit us. That is all we are required to do. When their mast man was yelling, the boat was at least 15 feet away from us, so we were keeping clear. There is nothing in the rules that says we have to anticipate their moves. Even though their mast man was telling us to come up, I do not have to listen to their intentions, but rather, I have to stay clear of them. Since they established the overlap from behind, they were sailing lower or at the same course we were on. So for the luffing to begin, they needed to change course, not just yell for us to sail higher.
16 CHANGING COURSE
16.1 When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear.
So the whole time their mast man was yelling, I was watching their boat and waiting for them to begin to turn up. When they finally did turn up, I began our turn up into the wind. Now their boat was finally changing course and we were coming up to keep clear. Their mast man continued to complain about the situation and I responded by saying, “shut up or protest.” I was not interested in continuing an argument with one of their nine crewmembers. If they think we are breaking a rule, protest. The mast man on their boat continued without a break.
My point with the whole situation comes back to the old school way of resolving differences of opinion. We need to have a protest structure that is used by competitors. It is a bad thing that this person felt compelled to complain incessantly to us about the situation. That is a result of them not wanting to protest and discuss the situation in a mediation or hearing. Instead they chose to argue it on the water. I will not be able to win an argument on the water since I am busy steering, trimming the main, and looking out for other boats. Their mast man obviously had nothing else to do at the start except to argue about the rules. In another world, it would be like arguing about politics with a mother while three kids were screaming at her. It just does not work.
I have been involved with club racing where protests are frowned upon. You end up getting crazy actions because half the people on the course learn the rules from experience rather than reading. Then both boats end up thinking they were fouled and settle it in another way. These arguments should not be taking place on the water. Period. Know your rules, if you think someone has broken them, protest. The rules are clear on what should happen.
Back to the race, we came out of this situation slow and heading to the wrong side. I lost track of the wind direction during the start episode, as did the rest of the crew. We ended up headed to the left side upwind and that was the wrong choice. The right side was favored and we paid for it. We rounded the first mark in third.
The first downwind leg was puffy enough that we held our own against the spinnaker boats. The next upwind was uneventful. Everyone recognized the right was favored and it was a parade. Downwind again and back up were more of the same.
We were in a tight race with Heart Attack. Our rating seemed to work in this breeze as we held with them upwind, but lost time downwind. We corrected over them by 19 seconds, so it was very close. Mad Hatter won the race by over 3 minutes.
Sorry C boats. I did not see much of what went on. It was nice to race for over an hour, but since C was done first, we did not have a chance to see how the boats did. We did notice some new boats out there, which is always nice to see.
For further reading, check out this link, which describes the different levels people go through to gain knowledge of the rules. http://apparentwind.blogspot.com/2009/05/learning-to-embrace-racing-rules-of.html
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I think it’s unfortunate that the author chose to bad mouth someone (me) and accuse them of gross misconduct without ever speaking to them off the water. I would much rather have had this conversation face to face, and still sincerely hope that may happen. However, since the author started this conversation in cyberspace, I feel I should initially respond in the same venue. So as the (substitute) ‘mast man’ referred to in the preceding post, I would like to take this opportunity to respond and state my own personal views on the incident.
ReplyDeleteLet me begin by saying that I actually had a lot of respect for the author as a sailor. It is clear he knows his way around a race course, as shown by his consistently solid results and the fact that he sails (well) in the absence of a lot of crew. However, on this occasion the author is in error about a lot of what he said.
To start with - the facts. Somewhere around 15-20 seconds before the start of the race, the author’s boat was well to windward and slightly ahead of us. However, he was early to the start. Therefore, he bore off so he would not cross the line before the starting gun. That would have been OK, except for the fact that there was a boat to leeward of him - the boat that I was on the bow of. When he bore off, I did in fact tell him to stay up, because he was sailing down on us. In point of fact, I yelled. I wanted my statements to be clear and I wanted them to be heard over the wind and pre-start commotion. And I wanted him to comply.
The author’s windward boat, however, did not stop sailing down on us. He continued sailing roughly parallel to the starting line, which meant he was getting closer and closer to us, as we were sailing at a 30-40 degree angle to the line. As the author admits, at their closest point, the boats were no more than half a boat length away sailing on intersecting courses in a pretty decent breeze. That fact alone would be enough for many protest committees to disqualify the author’s boat. (I would submit that we were actually well under 10 feet away at our closest point, but 15 feet in that situation with converging boats would still be too close.)
Because the author’s boat was still traveling parallel to the line to avoid being over early and we were still traveling at a 30-40 degree angle to the line, we had to alter our course to avoid making contact with him - we bore off. We did this because the boats were getting too close to be safe and too close for him to physically be able to keep clear of us. If he headed up and sailed parallel to us, he would have brought his stern closer to us, most likely making contact with us (the rudder moves the back of the boat). If he continued straight or bore off, he would have hit us. This is a foul all the way.
Given those facts, let’s examine Rule 11 and the definition of keeping clear. While the author is right that he does not have to anticipate our boat’s course changes, he does have to anticipate that we will continue traveling a straight course, which is what we were doing. The definition of keeping clear has two requirements when boats are on the same tack and overlapped. The author focuses on the second (which doesn’t apply here), but forgets the first. The first requirement is that “One boat keeps clear of another if the other can sail her course with no need to take avoiding action.” We couldn’t continue sailing our course and had to take avoiding action. Therefore, the author did NOT keep clear and violated Rule 11.
(continued in the next post)
The rules are also very clear that there is no need for the boats to get close enough in this, or any, situation to actually hit. Rule 14 is very clear - “A boat shall avoid contact with another boat if reasonably possible.” At a more basic level, it’s also important to remember that the rules are designed to keep boats apart, not decide which insurance company should pay for the damages. We should not be turning the sport into a legal battle, rather we should use the rules to make sure that it is a tactical battle.
ReplyDeleteRule 16 never comes into play during this incident. We were not changing course and asking him to follow suit, we were asking him to keep clear of us as we traveled in a straight line. Specifically, we were asking him to keep clear by not sailing down into us; or as I was yelling, to “stay up”.
As for the ‘shut up or protest’ line, I can understand his frustration at being at a crowded start in breeze with only two or three crew, however, he should also understand ours. He fouled us - no questions asked.
Now for the other rules that the author cites.
Rule 46 is about registering a boat in a regatta. It was not written to say that only one person on a boat may communicate with other boats. That is not what the rule says nor what it implies. The author may wish that was the case, but it is not.
(continued in the next post)
As for his implication that I broke Rule 69 by telling him to stay up and subsequently telling him that he fouled us - that is a joke. Rule 69 is meant for someone who drills holes in the bottom of someone’s boat or T-bones a competitor to let a friend take a win or as I’ve heard it said once before, for someone who sleeps with the commodore’s wife. It is not intended for people arguing about the rules or even for people who tell other people to ‘shut up’. The fact that I didn’t do what you said does not make guilty of having bad manners or sportsmanship. It makes me guilty of not doing what you wanted me to do - not what any rule or code of conduct requires me to do or implies I should do.
ReplyDelete(In fact, the sailing rules do not require that a conversation between boats takes place at any point in time and only in instances of obstructions and protests is one party required to speak at all. The author was free to continue sailing his own race and not engage in what unfortunately became a 2-way shouting match between two people who got too heated. However, just because the rules don’t require communication, does not mean that the sport should be devoid of it, especially when boats are close to each other on the racecourse, or are docked next to each other at the end of the day.)
As for whether or not to protest, I couldn’t agree more with the author that not enough people actually file protests. The sport at the local level would be better served if more people understood the rules and were held to account for following them through a robust protest process. In retrospect, maybe we should have done that. However, for a Wednesday night series, I generally don’t like to protest unless it’s something that ruins my race completely (even though I can’t get redress for it) or the person who fouled me is a repeat offender. I think that talking about the incident off the water and outside of a formal protest is often a good first step and can help people cool off after a hot race and understand the rules better.
(I should also note that the rules do not require a protest to be filed for an offending boat to take a penalty for a rule that they breached.)
Finally, I don’t need to post my resume here, nor did I recite it on the water as the author implied - that’s just tacky and irrelevant. However, I will say that I know the rules quite well and have known them quite well for quite some time. I would be happy to discuss them with the author of the previous post, along with this incident, some Wednesday night over a beer. I think the dock is a better venue for these conversations than the internet and hopefully more of those dock-side conversations happen in the future.
Thank you for the response. Sorry to have forced the venue on you. I agree with many of your criticisms and have even modified my post as I was not very clear in it. I like to quote many rules in the blog to help foster learning. Using 46 and 69 was not applicable.
ReplyDeleteThe resume thing did not apply to you and was in retrospect an inappropriate place to include that thought.
If you would like me to remove the whole post, feel free to request that. I think this whole blog thing is getting a little out of hand. I try to just talk about rules, but often digress.
Your response to my post on the right of way rules is the perfect example of how two boats see a similar situation from different perspectives. I do think it got too close after the start and I could have easily been fouling. Before the start, I was right behind and slightly to leeward of Gusto. I am not sure I could have come up without clipping their motor. WE were able to clear it with 5 seconds to go and that is when things got bad for us.
Re-reading my post, I also neglect to mention that I was in a bad starting position. That was the real problem for us all along that night.
Thanks again for the response. I appreciate your time to defend yourself and I apologize for putting you in that position. After reading your post, I would be inclined to take the penalty. We discussed it on the water, but ultimately could not pull the trigger. I was just not paying enough attention to the boat to know if we were sailing close-hauled when the boats did converge.
This blog is going from journal to public display and I am a bit caught off guard.