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What's the purpose of rule 18.4?
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Brass View Drop Down
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    Posted: 06 Jun 19 at 12:50pm

Originally posted by mozzy

Asymmetric boats sailing to final port hand leeward mark before a short reach to the finish. 

Both boats are coming in on their laylines. Starboard is overlapped inside and entitled to mark room. Proper course is to gybe on the mark for tight reach to the finish.

At the weekend I was in starboard position and gybed on the mark. Port boat carried her momentum through to leeward to finish ahead. 

Afterwards we discussed and decided it would have been better to sail a higher course from further out, to meet the port boat before the zone and call starboard on them then, forcing a double gybe, or them to take our transom.

Yes, that's a safe tactic.

The risk with that is that they take your transom and have an inside overlap once you gybe for the mark. 

But could I have instead of carried on on starboard, forcing the port boat to gybe off, before then gybing on to port myself and finish? I.e. force the port boat to double gybe. 

But does 18.4 require me to gybe right on the mark and not continue on starboard to force the other boat to gybe? 

If P was able to sail through your lee and get ahead of you, that suggests that she got a little deeper than you, and was sailing hotter to the mark, and that, gybing at the mark had you sailing below your optimum boat speed (too deep/cold).  That is, gybing at the mark put you above the layline to the finishing mark.

That being the case, it was not your proper courses to gybe at the mark.  Your proper course to finish fastest was to stand on on starboard to get a little lower, then gybe back to the mark a bit hotter.

So, yes your proper course was to stand on on starboard, leaving port to keep clear.

So it just happens that your [strategic] proper course give you a tactical advantage by putting P through a gybe to keep clear of you.

If your protest committee are not experienced assy sailors, you might have a little difficulty that you were sailing your proper course to the layline, rather than standing on to gain the tactical advantage on P and breaking rule 18.4.
Originally posted by ohFFsake

What if
1. The short leg to the finish is very deep, so if you sail hot angles you might not want to gybe at the mark as that would entail having to gybe again to get down to the line, or

Very deep to the finishing mark would make it very clear that it was not your proper course to gybe at the mark.

2. The finish line is very biased so you want to gybe late and sail to the leeward end of it, or
3. There is an identifiable tide or wind advantage to be had by delaying your gybe

Yup.  All about good reasons why your proper course at the mark was not to gybe.
Originally posted by Fatboi

Not 100% on your exact situation, but if you can argue that it wasn't your fastest route to the finish by gybing on the mark, then you are covered. 

It's not enough just to argue it:  you have to win the arguement.

See the discussion above about why a protest committee might not be convinced when sailing your proper course also gives you a tactical win over the port tacker at the mark.
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ohFFsake View Drop Down
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Posts: 219 		Post Options Post Options   Quote ohFFsake Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 19 at 12:59pm
Originally posted by Brass

It's not enough just to argue it:  you have to win the arguement.
And that is rules interpretation in a nutshell!

When it comes to protests, it's not just about taking part...
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davidyacht View Drop Down
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Posts: 1345 		Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 19 at 2:33pm
Originally posted by ohFFsake

Originally posted by davidyacht

Downwind dog leg finishes should be discouraged, they put far too much pressure on the leeward mark to gain room, and the subsequent pump fest to the finish line, particularly if there is no jury boat.  With large fleets and the current fashion for short races too many places can change in the closing couple of minutes of the race.   

It really is not that hard for a Committee boat to move up to the windward mark, or send a patrol boat to the windward mark to finish the race, and would rarely add more than 10 minutes to the schedule.  

It would also give them much more opportunity to correctly record the finishing sail numbers in the correct order.
I would argue that the current fashion for hooked finishes generally benefits the Race Committee, for the following reasons:
1. One boat can start and finish races without needing to move, which is especially useful with multiple fleets. And who doesn't like a quick turnaround between races!
One boat can start and finish races without needing to move could be interpreted as laziness on the part of the RO, if the RO cannot be bothered to lift the hook they could send a patrol boat to the windward mark, or how about a gate 1/3rd of the way up the beat, I have seen this used effectively at Riva Del Garda.   I am unconvinced that the leeward finish dramatically speeds up the turnarounds, in Solos we are doing 30 to 45 minute windward leeward races back to back, so the run back takes less than 10 minutes.
2. Boats can't generally "live" side by side for more than a few yards on a beam reach, so they tend to separate into line astern and cross one after another, so fewer close finishes and dead heats to sort out
Whether this is effective depends very much on the position of the committee boat, relative to the distance mark, more often than not there is little bias between the ends, so everyone blasts for the line, meaning that there are dead heats, and the boats to windward are not sighted from the committee boat.
3. It is easier to see sail numbers when the boat is reaching above the committee boat - the view of the mainsail is typically square on, whereas on a beating finish it is often more oblique
I don’t accept this, I RO quite a few events, and downwind finishes, including reaching finishes make the correct recording of finishing sail numbers; a windward finish has the benefit of slowing the action and being able to record numbers before, during and after the finish.

My real objection to the leeward finish is not the reach to the finish, but the bun fight during the approach to the final leeward mark, in a big (typically 80 boat) fleet, after a comparatively short race.   My experience is that there will be a bunch of boats that are pumping and rocking to secure inside berth, because the gains can be 20 or 30 boats, at this point there is little point hailing, because there are too many of them, and getting wound up will not help your own game, a windward finish removes this pressure, since a more orderly single line queue forms coming out of the mark.
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Brass View Drop Down
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Posts: 1151 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Brass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jun 19 at 12:17am
David,

I think that you are a bit unkind to suggest that a RO arranging a course to allow starting and finishing races from a single committee vessel without repositioning is lazy.

Perhaps you missed OFFS point that this is useful when there are multiple class starts.

I don't think that you have used your repositioning from leeward to windward method in practice for multiple starts.
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