Racing Rules: more rules help

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more rules help

Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Racing Rules
Forum Discription: Discuss the rules and your interpretations here
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13790
Printed Date: 07 Aug 25 at 7:13pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: more rules help

Posted By: ClubRacer
Subject: more rules help
Date Posted: 23 May 21 at 5:35pm

This weekend. Open

Replies:

Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 23 May 21 at 7:20pm

So we start off with both boats on port, and Y clear ahead and to windward of B. So Y has ROW.
Y changes course and gybes onto Starboard. She retains ROW, but must give B room to keep clear.
B gybes on to starboard and is now windward overlapped. They enter the Zone, B is now entitled to mark room.
For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me B then hits the mark.
With Y having ROW right through, it seems to be it all hinges on whether B was given the room she was entitled.
So we start with the definition:

Room The space a boat needs in the existing conditions, including space to comply with her obligations under the rules of Part 2 and rule 31, while manoeuvring promptly in a seamanlike way.

As soon as I saw the words crash gybe I started wondering whether room was given, and similarly "can't avoid hitting".

Posted By: ClubRacer
Date Posted: 23 May 21 at 7:28pm

Obviously the conditions have to play a part in this. Gybing in 15-20 knots 3 boat lengths from a zone and then having to drop the kite, which I don't think B has to anticipate the gybe so therefore needs to be left room to drop the kite before rounding (is that even covered in the rules)? Would Y have to give B enough room to drop the kite before rounding which may end up another 2-3 boat lengths from the buoy given the speeds they are travelling?

Its a tough one. If you removed the mark situation I would say Y's gybe was totally legal but am unsure where Y's obligation to give B mark room ends

Also had it have been 5 knots of breeze there would be no issue about getting a seaman like rounding out of that situation

Posted By: Brass
Date Posted: 23 May 21 at 9:52pm

As usual, I'm not much taken with the term 'crash gybe'. What's the difference between a crash gybe when you don't want to gybe and a quick gybe when you do want to?

As far as I can see, after Y gybed, B gybed, in a seamanlike way and there was no contact. I think Y is clean for rules 15/16 in the gybe.

Once in the zone, according to the OP 'B can't avoid hitting Y and get a seaman like rounding' That's saying that B is not being given mark-room.

So, on valid protest, penalise Y, B is exonerated for the mark touch, but is not entitled to any redress.

No need to 'take the mark away', that's for opposite tacks at a windward mark.

Y's obligation to give mark room ends when 'mark-room has been given' (rule 18.1)

The mark-room B is entitled to is (a) room to sail to the mark, and then (b) room to round or pass it as necessary to sail the course.

By the diagram, I don't think that Y has yet reached the point where all the mark-room B is entitled to has been given.

Posted By: ClubRacer
Date Posted: 23 May 21 at 10:13pm

The take the mark away was merely a way of justifying my interpretation of the legality of the gybe.

Why would B not be able to get redress under 62.1b? In theory then B would be better off attempting to take the mark room at the risk of contact?

Here is my expectation of how it would have played out if B had gone for mark room. Y would not have born away at 7 and there would have been a collision at near 10 knots. B couldn't stay higher and been able to get round the mark.

Note that Y could probably have had the kite down a lot sooner than the diagram and thus would not need to bear away, apart from to avoid contact with B

http://imgur.com/a/2fEFdFS" rel="nofollow - https://imgur.com/a/2fEFdFS

Has B taken too much mark room in that hypothetical situation?

The difference between a crash gybe for me and a fast gybe is a crash is; pull the tiller, work the rest out later. In this scenario obviously it worked fine initially. Had it have not then B would be looking at Y for not giving room to keep clear. Obviously Y have no obligation to give B time to setup for a nice gybe just "room to keep clear." 9 times out of 10 you can anticipate the moves of others around you and prevent the crash gybes by being "setup" ready to gybe when needed, but B has no obligation to expect Y to gybe in this scenario.

Posted By: Brass
Date Posted: 23 May 21 at 11:38pm

OK, yes, there are two separate incidents, the gybe incident, outside the zone, so mark-room not involved, then the incident at the mark.

For redress under rule 62.1(b), there has to be injury or physical damage. You didn't say anything about that in your OP. It's not enough that there could have been damage or injury.

I think your judgement is right about insufficient mark-room.

Posted By: ClubRacer
Date Posted: 24 May 21 at 6:01am

How does that look in a protest room?
It feels like its going to be hard to prove that Y didn’t give B mark room because B bailed out. Would the diagrams drawn be sufficient?
Im still un-clear in this scenario if mark room involves room for B to drop its kite. If both boats were coming in overlapped on starboard for a long time then is the expectation for room needed to round the mark less?

Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 24 May 21 at 7:55am

Wouldn't yellow just say - yes, there was room to gybe, blue gybed? And then say yes, there was room at the mark, it's not my problem that blue can't steer properly?
Without witnesses, it simply becomes opinions on space, and yellow is always going to say there was plenty, and blue that there wasn't. The protest then just becomes about who is believed. Or is that just a cynical view?

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686

Posted By: ClubRacer
Date Posted: 24 May 21 at 8:02am

Originally posted by Rupert

Wouldn't yellow just say - yes, there was room to gybe, blue gybed? And then say yes, there was room at the mark, it's not my problem that blue can't steer properly?
Without witnesses, it simply becomes opinions on space, and yellow is always going to say there was plenty, and blue that there wasn't. The protest then just becomes about who is believed. Or is that just a cynical view?

Well that is my thoughts too and wanted better insight into how it would be resolved

Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 24 May 21 at 10:03am

I'm still puzzled by why B felt it necessary to "stuff it into the mark to avoid a big collision" The two boats were alongside each other travelling in the same direction at much the same speed. Even if Blue's drop went badly wrong wouldn't the worst have been a bit of bumping and both boats ending up several boat lengths past the mark before rounding up?

Protests are almost always about what the PC reckons really happened. The PC is under no obligation to believe either story, and its probably not unusual for the actual events to have been somewhere in between.

I think RYA Case 2004/8 is somewhat relevant.

RYA 2004/8
Definitions, Mark-Room
Rule 18.2(b), Mark-Room: Giving Mark-Room
Rule 18.4. Mark-Room: Gybing
The room an outside overlapped boat must give at a mark to an inside right-of-way boat includes room to gybe when that is part of the inside boat’s proper course to round the mark. In determining the right of an inside boat to mark-room under rule 18.2(b), it is irrelevant that boats are on widely differing courses, provided that an overlap exists when the first of them enters the zone.

SUMMARY OF THE FACTS
In force 3-4 conditions, following a wind shift, S was approaching a leeward mark, which she was required to round to port, broad-reaching on starboard tack in order to gybe onto a reciprocal close-hauled course. P, on another leg of the course, was approaching the same mark, also to round it, from nearly the opposite direction, on port tack.
S hailed for room to round the mark and this hail was acknowledged. S judged that she was not being given sufficient room to gybe in safety, and passed astern of P before gybing. Her protest, under rules 10 and 18, and which alleged contact (but not damage), was dismissed on the grounds that contact was not proven, that room was given for her gybe, and for S to decide not to gybe was prudence that should not result in the penalisation of P. S appealed.
DECISION
S’s appeal is upheld. P is disqualified.
S and P were on opposite tacks, but rule 18 applied, since both boats were not on a beat to windward (see rule 18.1(a)), nor was the proper course of one of them to tack at the mark (see rule 18.1(b)). It was not relevant that they were approaching the mark on widely differing courses – see WS Case 12. When the first of them entered the mark’s zone they were overlapped, and P was required by rule 18.2(b) to give S room to round the mark. It is clear that S’s proper course was to gybe at the mark as required by rule 18.4, and that she intended to do so.
The protest committee’s conclusion that sufficient room was given for a gybe is contradicted by its conclusion that, in the circumstances, it was prudent for S not to attempt to gybe in the room given. That is tantamount to saying that S was not given sufficient space in the prevailing conditions.
Rather than gybing, S luffed, and contact was likely had she not done so. P therefore broke both rule 10 and rule 18.2(b).

As its unarguable that B needed to take down her kite, then it seems reasonable to me that room needed to be provided to do it in the same way the case states that room to gybe needed to be provided.

Posted By: ClubRacer
Date Posted: 24 May 21 at 11:03am

The diagram is hard to get the details. The little wobble from Y as they bailed from their first attempt meant that the second one put them going into the mark at nearly 90 degrees from the wind. B’s gybe to windward meant that by the time the gybe was completed the angle to get down the mark was closer to 150 degrees 10 knots of boat speed into a wedge. I expect Y never anticipated B to gybe inside them and would have exit onto a lower angle.
At what point would Y then have to start trying to keep clear of B? Is it as soon as Y gybes as at that current point B was overlapped inside or is it as soon as they enter the zones overlapped? I remember something about mark room being a rule you have to react too before you hit the zone, i presume to prevent pile ups when rafts of boats all come into the mark together. I also presume this is situational?

Bit of a bumping!!!!