Top dog

The "boy" won two last August, anyone won two in one month?

dave Wade fireballs and scrops last year.

Not sure that this years Merlin result for Taxi really counts. Clearly the dominant performance of the week was denied by a shabby race officer decision turned over by a protest committee who then gave shocking and ineffective redress. I would not be surprised to see the result reversed on appeal.

Matt Burge got the Furball Worlds and Osprey Intergalactics this year.

I wasn't there, but from the reports the redress thing seems quite straightforward: they were given average points because they were scored OCS incorrectly. But what seems to have happened was that in the last race, when the top boat was match raced to the back, this had a unusual affect on the results.

In normal circumstances this is fair enough: you give the other boat a down the pan result in exchange for accepting one yourself, which is advantageous if you have a better discard. In this case though, with the redress, one boat got one down the pan result but the other boat got two because the average points for the rdg were increased too - before the last race their average points for the race with redress were 1 point something, afterwards I think 8.8.

I think in their place I might be tempted to ask for the redress hearing to be reopened - I'm not sure this is exactly how average points as redress are really intended to work. I figure that they are supposed to put you in the situation you would have been in if the RC error hadn't happened. Its easy to see how bystanders might feel uncomfortable about this situation. The report seems to imply they finished the race in which they were given redress, and if that's the case a decision to give average points does seem odd: I would submit that reinstating the actual finishing place would be better. Of course normally with a BFD the compatitor has to leave the course, and in that case average points are the only option. Maybe they did though and the bit about finishing was just writer's license.

Edited by JimC - 02 Sep 11 at 9:24am

If I understand it right, it does seem odd that at the time it was awarded the redress was to be an average over some races than had not yet been sailed - this gives the opportunity for all sorts of stuff in the races at the end of the series