Proper Course

Sorry Scoobs, don't agree with you on this one. Proper course is indeed very loosely defined but in a protest room you would be very hard pressed to argue that your proper course was initially very low to hoist kite then high to get max speed (before bearing off when apparent wind come forward).

In any case, my second point still holds true. Two boats downwind, both sailing "different" proper courses. Windward boat keeps clear. You cannot bear away - effectively into another boat -  and demand right of way.

A couple of years ago I cleared the top mark in a "mixed" Hurricane event and raised kite. Trouble was that a two sail Huricane was below me and quite correctly intent on luffing me to death. I could have hailed for room to bear away but I think my request would have been met with derision.

(Fortunately, God sails an SX and a freak gust put the other boat mast down in a shallow estuary. Ha bloody ha. However that was the only way I was going to get past him in the short term.)

There is no way that hoisting a kite is an integral part of any mark roundiing.

So, going around the mark, the outside boat has to give way / provide room. Once you have finished rounding the mark, you then move onto the hositing the kite routine. And at that point the windward boat has to keep clear, and the leeward boat can "luff" (slowly, providing opportunity to keep clear) well above the direct course to the next mark if that is there proper course. There is no way that the windward boat can bear away in order to be able to hoist the kite.

Kite setting may be part of a mark rounding. Rule 18 appliees from the time that boats are about to round a mark until  both boats have completed their rounding.

A typical situation - on a windy day manoeuvers to take down a spinnaker may start well before the zone. Boats are about to round the mark. Entering the 2 boat length zone is the point at which an existing overlap (or non-overlap) becomes "fixed" and cannot be broken. Rights acquired at this moment are fixed throughout the rounding.

The rounding ends, and Rule 18 ceases to apply, when the transom of the last boat passes the mark. During the rounding kites may be hoisted, and if in certain boats the seamanlike manoeuvre to hoist the kite is to bear away, then, WHILST RULE 18 APPLIES, any boat obliged under rule 18 to keep clear or give room must allow room for this.

If after the mark rounding an outside boat acquires rights as a leeward boat then she must give room to the ex-inside, now windward boat, to keep clear. This may include time to finish hoisting the kite. If the leeward boat luffs and the windward boat luffs and immediately capsizes because her kite was not fully hoisted the windward boat could claim that she was not given enough room.

There is a match racing call which states that when a leeward boat luffs a windward boat to the point qwhere the seamanlike thing to do would be to take the kite down then the leeward boat must give room for the windward boat to do so.

Gordon

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by gordon There is a match racing call which states that when a leeward boat luffs a windward boat to the point qwhere the seamanlike thing to do would be to take the kite down then the leeward boat must give room for the windward boat to do so. Does that mean that the Windward boat is then obliged to take the kite down? Or can they ask for room and then leave it up?

The obligation for Leeward to give Windward time to get the kite down is not infinitive. If Windward leaves the spinnaker up, after Leeward has given time, they no longer have the protection of room. Leeward may luff up and Windward has to keep clear.

Originally posted by ChrisJ There is no way that hoisting a kite is an integral part of any mark roundiing.

 

BULL****

 

It all depends upon upon the wind conditions and course, of course, but in lighter winds (ie ones where I don't need to be out the rack during the rounding) I'd hope to have the kite pulling by the time we're fully round the mark. Might not always manage it, but it's an aspiration certainly. We're going for maximum speed- why wouldn't be hoisting whilst rounding?

Obviously, in bigger winds, I'll wait till we've got through the Zone of Death before moving in and forward to hoist, and we'll have cleared the mark by then, but really, there's no hard and fast rule on this.