Drop the discards?

Originally posted by mozzy

Originally posted by mozzy

Originally posted by Chris 249

If you don't have a discard in "amateur" racing, you'll probably have a lot more requests for redress. Many times it seems that when you're mired in mid pack and having a bad race, you get slowed down by people who don't know the rules. 

But you can't request redress just because some else broke a rule. It has to have caused significant damage to your boat or self. Also, if you are damaged in a collision where another boat broke a rule when you were down in the pack, the redress is unlikely to bump you back up to the top, it would just reinstate you where you were when the incident happened. So I wouldn't say there is any increased likelihood of people requesting redress. 

If damage has affected a boats race, then boats should be protesting for redress, I don't see discard changing that, unless it happens in the last race of the series you never know when you are going to pick up another bad result. 

May it increase more protests in situation not applicable to redress? I don't think so, most protests don't go through because there is no gain, or just a single point gain, for the protester. That wouldn't change. 

It might however improve rule observance as people would know one collision, or one lost protest would end their event. 

D'oh, you're right of course. I had a recollection of a couple of incidents where people got clobbered while unusually far down the pack and got redress, and I ignored the majority of situations. 

I do seem to recall that it's harder to give redress to a boat that's further back in the pack than they usually are, compared to redress between boats at the the front or in their usual place. You got disabled while passing to take the lead? Ok, you get first. You got disabled while sitting in your normal 20th place? Ok, take 20th. You got disabled while in 10th at the first mark in an event where in every other heat you gained 10 places after the first mark? Hmmm, giving you 10th place on redress would be implying that it would have been the only heat in which you had not moved up during the race. That's a tough call.

I can recall reading about events before discards and alternative penalties, where owners would build new boats, ship them across the world, and have their series end on the starting line of the first event. That's even when the boats were being sailed by people who were known as conservative seamen. Such incidents led to people deciding that the no-discard rule meant that a minor error was too likely to cause a disproportionate penalty.

By the way, congrats on the big win! 

Edited by Chris 249 - 24 Aug 18 at 11:47pm