Exoneration penalties, arbitration, etc

Originally posted by Vronny Originally posted by sargesail My word - I'd take 2 turns rather than 20% any day! But if that just means a 2 point penalty as opposed to doing a 2-turn penalty which could lose you several places, especially late in a race when it might be hard to get those places back ? And the other thing is that taking a penalty doesn't affect anyone else's score. So if you were leading you get 2 extra points and so end up with 3 points. But the boat that was second still has 2 points, and the boat that was third has 3 points just like you've ended up with. So that penalty doesn't seem very punishing!

Obviously, as the fleet size gets bigger the penalty points increase - so 3 points for a fleet of 15 boats.

If you can demonstrate that a competitor knew they had broken a rule and did not take a penalty then that is a Rule 2 infringement the penalty for which is DNE. There is aslo the possiility of taking action under rule 69.


IMHO we should be more pro-active in using rules 2 and 69
Gordon

Yes, that's the system as I understand it. But it does worry me that it could be abused a bit. For example, the usual penalty clubs have adopted is 20% (minimum 2 points). In a club race in windy weather someone might decide it's better for their chances to not do a 2-turns penalty but accept the scoring penalty afterwards. That way they save themselves the worry of a capsize or losing to half the fleet when doing turns. Is this fair?

I'm curious to know if most clubs have adopted the scheme just as set out in the RYA Best Practice doc or have some made adjustments - eg. using a higher scoring penalty than the usual 20%?