Start Line Collision

The story as I have it (I wasn't there) was that W was "hovering" right on the line before the start. L approached from astern sailing a higher course, gained an overlap and hailed W to respond as windward boat. W didn't respond and contact ensued.

Whether W did or didn't actually have time to respond is indeed unknown. I'm just wondering if there is any case law that would come up with a ruling when this is the only point disputed.

If W was "hovering" on the line then it's quite possible that they had little maneuverability and would have taken time to be able to respond. If that's the case then L was in a better position to be able to avoid a collision than W. 

Thanks for all the thoughts folks. Jim the rule 69 reference was particularly useful.

Spoke to L tonight. He says W was sat on the line ready to trigger pull. L approached from below and behind sailing a higher course and hailed him to keep clear. L says W could have pulled the trigger or even just sheeted his sail in and kept clear but instead continued to sit where he was. W's boom made contact with L's boat, then W bore away across L's bows to start, with the rather comical result that his transom became entangled with L's bowsprit and extracted it from its stowed position (RS400) resulting in him towing L along 6 feet behind!

Reading between the lines I suspect L's intent all along was to squeeze W over the line, which is a legitimate manoeuvre, if a little match-racey perhaps.

So presuming that L's testimony is something along the lines of the above account, whilst W will no doubt testify that L gave him insufficient room to respond, how would one deal with the ensuing protest? Clear contact, no penalty turns by either party so I guess at least one boat has to be DSQ'd.

Regarding the bad language, it was a fair bit of "effing and jeffing" and aggressive name calling by the helm of W directed at L, which went on for a fair while from the initial contact until after the boats were eventually disentangled. L's crew was a 13 year old girl, and other junior sailors were present, which to me pushes it over the boundaries of acceptability, especially on a start line where the entire fleet was clearly within earshot.

Do you have an online reference to case 13 - I can only find a single line summary.

Thanks

I suspect that you are looking at the summary at the beginning of the Casebook. Go to the later pages and you'll find the full appeal.

That is assuming that you are looking at the correct document which you can download from http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/20132016ISAFCaseBookUpdatedJan2014-%5b16129%5d.pdf.

Also if you look for a posting by Brass in this rules forum, he has listed a number of downloadable rules reference documents.