Here's an interesting one..

This sunday on the lake which has marks scattered around the periphery, but with a couple midway up so the course involves a beat to two right upwind, then a long end to end run, a beat halfway back up then reach back a bit off to the right then a beat through the start gate and back off up to the two top marks again. Difficult to describe all this but it's a bit puffy and shifty but the downwind leg you have the entire width of the lake to gybe on the shifts or spot gusts and try to use them downwind, so the course is from a buoy right in the top left corner of the lake right down to a buoy in the bottom right hand corner.

Half way back up there is a windward mark I'm approaching on starboard and will have to tack to leave it to Port then set off on a reach at an angle of say 90 degrees to the mean course from top to bottom. Now a Solo is coming downwind on it's way to the bottom mark and as I tack to round the buoy I notice it's suddenly a bit closer than I'd comfortably like to see it, it is aiming right at the mark I'm about to round, I'm ahead, the Solo has to continue further downwind and round the mark previous and then come back up wind, I'm chasing my fellow Solutioneer and he's getting away in the same puff.

Now having tacked and midway through the bear off the Solo hails starboard and is getting very close yet to clear this mark he would have to bear away and to avoid it harden up, quite why he's going anywhere near it is beyond me it's not exactly on the rhumb line to the correct course to the mark he's supposed to be headed but who knows maybe a shift took him that way although I doubt the solo is the sort of boat that benefits from sailing hot angles, but he's there and hailing..

So in dashing across his bows rounding the buoy onto my leg, I am presumably breaking the rules, no collision did occur and a bit of moaning took place on the shore and it is Port starboard since I had to tack onto Port to round my mark, had I hesitated and done nothing it also could have caused a collision so I could call Col regs, could I have hardened back up tacked off, I'm not sure, it was that close...

So what does the team think...

Edited by iGRF - 21 Aug 17 at 1:25pm

OMG there's a protest room and a half...

My assertion would be that the mark I was rounding was not in anyway part of the course to the mark he was headed, nor would the race team have set it as such and anyone in their right mind knowing windward boats would be rounding it should be giving it a wide berth.

But he's perfectly free presumably to follow downwind shifts and zig zag, so how does 'proper course' stand up to that?

I should have worked out which side of the mark he'd likely pass whilst still on starboard, before I tacked, like all these things nothing done deliberately here, just heat of the race and focus on the mark not anything upwind likely to be coming down to nail you. Do marks that carry zones that apply to those using them also apply to those whilst not on that particular leg, and would be perfectly able to stay well clear? If not, logic would say they should.

Originally posted by Brass I disagree.  Logic says a boat can sail wherever she chooses unless the rules say otherwise. You have got all the protection you deserve from rule 24.

Originally posted by JimC There is no single proper course, nor should there be. And if a boat goes wandering round the ocean at random

Well that's not my interpretation as far as I can recall the proper course is to do with finishing the race at the earliest opportunity. i.e. not deviating for 'random' reasons, like deliberately attempting a diversion to thwart a competitor with a needless starboard call, or luffing them over the horizon - I could be wrong of course, maybe I'll look it up and refresh my memory.

Edited by iGRF - 22 Aug 17 at 1:59pm

well lets take an example. Supposing boat A has luffed boat B into the next county, and is 100 yards upwind of the next mark, but the overlap got broken and made again and now boat A may not sail above her proper course. Is her proper course a line from where she is now to the next mark, or is it a line somewhere 100 yards downwind?

Proper Course A course a boat would sail to finish as soon as possible in the absence of the other boats referred to in the rule using the term. A boat has no proper course before her starting signal.

I'm confident that means the course the boat would sail to finish as soon as possible *from where she is now*, otherwise you get the nonsense in my example above, but there is a small question mark in my mind as regards RRS24.

I think though I were on a PC, and found that the boat being protested had carefully sailed herself into a position where she could impede a boat on another leg without diverting from what was now a proper course I'd vote to DSQ then under RRS24/RRS2 and rely on the Appeals folk to correct the decision if it was wrong. In your case though it doesn't sound as if the other boat was trying to slow you up, just that they didn't want you slowing them up.

Edited by JimC - 22 Aug 17 at 2:55pm