Moving the windward mark

Originally posted by ClubRacer This is all hypothetical and did not actually happen. I can see it being an issue for the future so am arming my self so i can speak to the sailing committee to educate RO's for best practice

If this had been originally initiated as a discussion of good race management, dare I say it, in the Race Management forum, instead of a question about 'protesting', it might have got some more helpful responses sooner.

Originally posted by ClubRacer moving the marks so boat A does 1KM course and boat B does 1.2KM course is just stupid. And Jim; Moving the mark in a radius around the leeward to create a nice windward leeward course is fine as long as the RO and the people in the ribs are competent to keep and eye and adjust accordingly as to not give any 1 boat an advantage. But this is a little hard to come by and educate for just a small club series.

I don't think anyone responding here underestimates the difficulty of doing a leg change with a spread out fleet. Yes, it needs an exceptionally good club race management team to bring it off reliably. Yes, for average lap racing, there's a significant risk that a change, even if executed strictly in accordance with rule 33, may provide less fair racing than no change at all.

If your club, as Organising Authority, directed your race committee, under rule 90.1, to not change legs under rule 33, at least for average lap racing, I, for one, wouldn't see anything wrong with that.

Originally posted by ClubRacer Edit; You mention redress but some people aren't willing to protest and some will want to cash in on the series score ultimately this decision screws the whole series

Are you sure that this action by the RO has any greater effect than all the other times when there was a wind shift and the RO did NOT respond?

Originally posted by ClubRacer after having another look it looks as if i could protest under 62.1A as per jims comment and it could potentially be abandoned under 64.2 anyone concur?

CASE 55
A boat cannot protest the race committee. However, she may request redress

The time you have spent faffing around on the Internet has probably exceeded the reasonable time allowed for the submission of a request for redress.

However, if you politely wrote or emailed the Race Committee, explaining your concerns, they could still abandon the race under rule 32.

Originally posted by sargesail I think at every club I've ever raced at on an average lap basis, the view of the fleet and race team would have been that you accept the way in which wind-shifts change the course, but that the course doesn't get changed.

That's one approach, and a perfectly reasonable one. It has the subtext which the OP seems to be coming from that losing out because of the weather is fair, but losing out because of RC actions is unfair. I don't think, though, you can say that other ways of managing races are intrinsically wrong. A good team should be seeking ways of making the racing as fair as possible for as many of the competitors as possible.

But although emotionally yours is a very compelling argument, I think in real terms it makes no difference if your race is stuffed by RC actions before the start (not setting a course that makes the race as fair as possible as conditions change) from RC actions after the start (changing the course to react to the changing conditions). But it is easy to imagine that someone who was lined up for a really good result because they threw a double six when the course was set badly will be much more aggrieved by the course being corrected than the person who was stuffed by the bad course will be aggrieved if its not changed.

But honestly, if you're at a club where moving the marks is routine, and its a windward leeward course, surely shifting the windward round the radius from the leeward is a good thing to do. But the other problem is always that in a well spread out handicap fleet its difficult to find an opportunity to shift the mark without causing confusion.

Edited by JimC - 11 Oct 15 at 10:21am

No wind shifts occurred during the race and the outcome of the results was purely down to the movement of the mark

Edited by ClubRacer - 10 Oct 15 at 9:27pm

after having another look it looks as if i could protest under 62.1A as per jims comment and it could potentially be abandoned under 64.2