This was an odd night. It started poorly with storms all over the area. Around 15:00, storms were ripping through north Jersey and southern NY. This seems to have spooked some of the fleet as a few crews never showed up.
Jazz pulled out of the dock around 17:20. We headed out of the marina and heard some chatter about a storm moving up from Nyack. This chatter was a common misconception on reading the radar. The flow was from the west, pushing the energy east. People were misreading the radar due to the energy moving north along the flow, but the flow was still moving to the east. The storms over Nyack and south never did make it up north and the worst we had was a few showers.
Around 17:30, we heard a call for a harbor hold. This seemed to be coming form the race marshal in Croton, so I took the liberty of retransmitting the message so the boats in Haverstraw would hear it and stay in the marina. We were not very concerned on Jazz about the weather since our interpretation of the radar showed that the energy would stay to our south with some light showers reaching up to Haverstraw.
With the fleet in a harbor hold, it came as quite a surprise to hear the RM cancel the race at 17:45. This action went against the instructions of the HBRA. Here is an excerpt from the HBRA instructions for 2012:
POSTPONEMENT: Two long (3-5 seconds each) horns will be sounded. A Wednesday race should not be canceled prior to 1845. Notify racers of an intention to start a race after postponement by announcing on VHF 72 then sounding TWO short horns one minute before the raising the Warning flag. In the case of severe weather, consider announcing a “harbor hold” and any related instructions on VHF channel 72.
CANCELLATION: Three Long horns. The race Marshall may in its’ discretion cancel a race due to severe weather conditions – but in no case prior to the scheduled start time.
There are two mentions of when a cancellation is allowed. Under the postponement heading, a race should not be cancelled until 18:45. Under the Cancellation heading, it says that no race should be cancelled prior to the scheduled start time. So going purely by the rules, the cancellation should have occurred no earlier than 18:45. So this evening was cancelled about an hour too early and by any interpretation of the rules, at least 30 minutes too soon.
It is not my goal to criticize the RM's discretion at cancelling the race. The RM was the same boat that went out last year when a race was prematurely cancelled and sailed with us. My goal is to discuss the rules we sail under and point them out when they are not followed. That is black and white.
The gray area lies in what the RM was thinking. A misinterpretation of the radar seems to have led them to think that the racing area would experience severe weather in the near future. If this were to pass, the right call was to keep the boats in the harbor hold until the threat passed. This was done at 17:30 and we thought everything was going to be fine. At 17:45 the race was cancelled and I have no idea what happened in those 15 minutes. We could have stayed in harbor hold until 18:15 without any increase in danger.
Harbor hold was added to the instructions this year to allow the situation that happened on this night. When severe weather is expected, keeping the boats in the marina is a good idea. If we had stayed in harbor hold until 18:00, everyone would have realized that the weather was not going to hit Haverstraw and we would be safe to race. That is how the racing should work when severe weather is a possibility.
My interpretation of the radar was vastly different than what I heard on the radio. While I agree that the energy was moving north, I was also considering the underlying flow moving the system to the east. That flow was consistent all day and it did move the energy away from the race area. Despite my interpretation, I know that things can change and I did not consider my interpretation as fact. I was prepared for other possibilities since even the radar can be misleading.
I stayed off the radio and did not air any of this since I have a troubled history of radio communication. We hoisted sail around 17:45 and sailed over to H. With the race already cancelled, we decided to just sail around for a while in the perfect 10 knot southerly. This southerly was great until about 18:45. Then it slowly died and by 19:15, we were ghosting in 2-4 knots.
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| Starting to get light around 18:55. |
If the rules had been followed to the letter, we would probably had a delayed start in some decent wind. Before the first boats reached the first mark (probably K), the wind would have died and everyone would have faced a downwind leg in light air against the current. I doubt many boats would have been able to finish the race.
In the end, the decision to cancel early may have just prevented a tough night in a dying breeze. As bad as that sounds, I would have liked the opportunity to try my luck on this night. I am sure most other boats would disagree as only two other boats even made it out to the river.
This is a world different than the premature cancellation last year. This was a responsible RM, on the water, making a decision based on sound principles with safety at the forefront. The only discrepancy was the cancellation came before the rules allow for a cancellation. Hopefully, future RM's will wait for the cancellation times to pass since conditions on the river change and no one can predict the weather perfectly. Seems that easy access to the radar in today's world is causing people to make incorrect assumptions about future weather, while leaving little room for doubt.
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