When all boats retire.

Originally posted by Brass I disagree with Gordon.  The race committee may abandon a race any time after the starting signal for any reason directly affecting the fairness of the competition,

I think most, even on this forum, maybe even on SA, would agree that abandoning the race after because everyone has gone home is a reasonable action!
[added later - umm, yes, I take Gordon's point in the next post]

Edited by JimC - 12 Feb 14 at 12:01pm

Originally posted by redders What would be your thoughts if it was a pursuit race? Is a boat that is capsized at the finish signal still racing?

Case 5 in the Case book specifically covers boats that are anchored, but includes this

Answer 1 Yes. In the preamble to Part 4, the word ‘racing’ is printed in bold italics and, therefore, it is being used in the sense stated in the Definitions (see Terminology in the Introduction). The definition Racing makes no mention of a boat that is anchored, aground, capsized or otherwise not progressing in the race. Therefore anchored boats are still ‘racing’, which means that they are protected by rule 23 and governed by the racing rules including rules 42.1 and 45.

So you can be anchored, aground, capsized or otherwise not progressing in the pursuit race and still be finished, depending on exactly what the finishing system that particular pursuit race is using.

What would be your thoughts if it was a pursuit race? Is a boat that is capsized at the finish signal still racing?

At club level, there is certainly a difference between "racing being abandoned" and an official "race abandoned". One involves a decision by the race officer, the other a lot of cold sailors sitting looking out of the window and deciding that trying to sail in that gale/through that ice is a bad idea. Like Blue One's club, it is rare that a race would be abandoned if people were keen to sail, simply because if people are keen to sail, chances are it is sailable, therefore race abandonment usually takes the form of people getting back in their cars and drifting off home.

On this OP subject, though - 1 boat has to finish for the retireds of everyone else to count, otherwise the race is simply scored like it never was? If that boat subsequently retires, or is protested, the finish still counts, though. That right?

Brass - you reinforce my argument:

in a race with no time limit the race committee cannot abandon a race simply because there are no finishers. The race shall be scored and all boats will receive an appropriate score as per RRSA5. This may have some importance when a series is being scored under rule A9.

There is nothing in the rules that obliges the race committee to set a time limit. If you read J2.1(7) this states "the time limit, if any, for finishing" (my underlining). Some organisers of offshore races, for instance, prefer not (rather than fail) to set a time limit.

On the other hand, if one boat does finish  the race may still be abandoned by the race committee (subjecy to the obligation to consider the consequences for all boats: rule 32.1) or the protest committee (after taking evidence from appropriate sources: rule 64.2)