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Simple Racing Rules

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Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Simple Racing Rules
    Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 12:00pm
As I expect I've said before the big problem is that we deal with very complex situations.

There are three obvious ways to handle this:

1: The Colregs approach. No one is allowed to get close. Doesn't work at mark roundings and starts unless you introduce something like a two boat length buffer that no-one is allowed to get within. Fundamental change of the game.

2: The racing incident approach. Accept that some situations are sufficiently complex that a simple set of rules can't handle them, and that **** happens and sometimes boats will collide and get damaged. Fine with rotomoulds on a reservoir perhaps, not so clever with larger boats and greater speeds.

3: What we have now, in which there is a blame/no blame in just about every situation, but not everyone manages to sort it out on the water.

To my mind 3 is the least worst.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 12:19pm
Don Becker's list should provide good guidance for many to take to the Race Course and avoid the worse situations... 

However I think part of the problem is that most of us buy the Rules as part of a Rules Explained book, which makes it more weighty than it needs to be ... Also, if you strip out all the irrelevant to most of us stuff, like team racing, model boat racing etc,  the number of relevant pages is much reduced.  I think that the RYA produce a simple rules guide with which you will not go far wrong.

To me the real key is that for it to be safe and sensible to race we have to make assumptions that the boats around us are going to behave in a predictable manner ... On this basis we can predict what is going to develop ahead of us ... If sailors have no knowledge of the rules behaviour will be unpredictable and chaos will ensue.

I am about to race in a particularly competitive fleet, and I am not sure that the Becker approach will deal with hails for "room" as twenty five boats aim for the same bit of the beach in an attempt to cheat the tide, however those using the Becker approach might accept their disempowerment and choose to stay out in the tide, calling Starboard on the Port Tackers coming off the beach.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 12:28pm
Originally posted by Solo4652


•5. Give boats enough time and room to avoid hitting things

Add to my previous post ...

Maybe 5 should be ..

"A boat may only ask for room in order to avoid hitting things.  You must keep out of the way of a boat that has asked for room."
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Solo4652 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 12:48pm
Hi Jim,
Thanks for helping me to think this through.

I've been racing yachts and dinghies for 40 years, and the rules just get more and more complex. I'm so frustrated and confused by them. Time for a fundamental re-think, in my opinion.

Let's try to come at this with a new mindset - a positive mindset that says; "I can produce a set of simple racing rules that will fit onto a one-sided sheet of waterproof plastic. It can be done, as long as we want it to be done". Let's try it and see what we come up with.

"We deal with very complex situations" - On the face of it, yes. Or maybe, the complex rules make situations seem complex. Chicken and egg. Rafted-up bunch of boats in a strong tide approaching a mark. Complex? On the face of it, with the current rules - Yes, I think so. However, with the simple 8-rule list above, maybe things become a lot less complex; "I need to sail round the mark without hitting anything and giving everybody else the time and room to do likewise" The big challenge here will be for people to change their mindset and think very differently. It can be done, I'm certain, although it won't be easy.

You say there are 3 obvious ways to deal with very complex situations. maybe there's a fourth:

4. See "complex" situations as simple, and use simple rules to sort things out.

Maybe I'm being sweetly naïve. Actually, I don't think so. Quite often situations are only as complex as you perceive them to be.

Edited by Solo4652 - 13 Aug 15 at 12:49pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Solo4652 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 1:53pm
Let's dare to be different for a moment. Let's put the current racing rules aside for an hour and look at some common racecourse situations using the Modified Becker Guidelines I posted above. Of course, the likely outcomes of applying different sets of rules will probably be different, so let's say that as long as nobody gets injured, nothing gets damaged, and manners/sportsmanship/jolly-good-show are the results, then that's a good outcome of applying the rules. If both sets produce outcomes that satisfy these 3 criteria, the Modified Becker Rules are deemed to be better because they're simpler and shorter. Let's try with;

Davidyacht's scenario; twenty five boats aim for the same bit of the beach in an attempt to cheat the tide.

Three asymmetric boats approach the leeward mark, two overlapped on Starboard, the other on Port.

At the start, an almost-stationary boat is luffed into the leeward side of a boat that's similarly almost stationary


I've no idea what's going to happen here - should be interesting!
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Brass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 3:14pm
Originally posted by Solo4652

Newcomer to the topic here. Apologies for re-visiting this, but I really do think it's important for our sport. 

I've long been interested in the concept of a simple, short set of rules for all sailors at all levels of the sport - not a subset of rules that simply add another level of complexity and possible confusion. A set of racing rules that can be published on one side of a waterproof plastic sheet - that's what's in my mind. 

Change the rules you change the game.

Many people who play 'our sport' like it the way it is.

Some people, like Jack Sparrow and yourself apparently want to change it.

By all means argue for reform, but don't assume that people who oppose your proposals are mindless conservatives.

Also understand:
  • beginners really can play the game with a simple subset of the rules and, if they are so inclined, play the game better and more effectively as their knowledge and expertise develops.
  • there are literally millions of boat on boat interactions on the water every day and every week, and only a miniscule number of these result in the slightest suspicion of a rules breach.
  • of these few, the vast vast vast majority if incidents are caused by unsatisfactory boat handling or poor judgement of time, space, and boats' capabilities,  NOT by lack of rules knowledge.
  • many parts of the rules have been developed, over many years to counter abuses of what were originally simply expressed rules;  and
  • as JimC has said, it's really quite a complex game out there, and simple rules will open up gaps where no rules effectively apply.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Solo4652 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 4:12pm
Hello Brass,

Perhaps I could pick up some of your points;

- The game's already changed with the advent of 30 knot+ foiling craft. Rules have had to be changed for safety's sake. If crash-and-burn media-sailing leads to easier to understand rules, then that's fine by me. KISS principle

- Quite a few people who play our sport don't like the way it is. There are posts in this thread from people who say so.

- I do not assume that people who oppose my proposals are mindless conservatives, and I don't know where you get that idea from.

- If beginners can play the game with a simple (sub)set of rules, then why don't we all use them. KISS principle again.

- We might think that it's a complex game out there. Maybe it isn't. Maybe situations are basically simple, and are made to look and feel complex by desperately complex rules. The more I look at Jacksparrow's Go!/race/retire-if-you-collide approach, the more I think it could almost work. A "complex" situation involving a raft of boats at a gybe mark immediately becomes simple; Get round the mark without hitting anybody. KISS

- So, rules can be made much simpler. I can only see 3 rules here for high-speed sailing; pages 20 and 21 of :http://www.britishlandsailing.org.uk/uploads/1/0/2/9/10293636/training_manual_presentation_v5.pdf   Also, consider the revised rules for Foiling cats at the last America's Cup. Indeed, you yourself give good examples in your previous posts. So what's the problem with seeing if we can simplify them still further? Unless, of course, you want the rules to be complex, difficult to understand, written in obfuscatory legalese with 3 subordinate clauses, difficult to apply and off-putting to many people.

Finally, as a courtesy, perhaps I could ask you not to write "Also understand..." before making points because it comes across as you ordering me to understand.

Thank you.

Edited by Solo4652 - 13 Aug 15 at 4:51pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote iiiiitick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 5:34pm
How about a separate set of simple to understand 'club racing rules'? Keep the others for more important national events.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 6:46pm
If you are sailing assymetrics or foiling I suspect that you are further down the track than requiring simplified rules
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Solo4652 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Aug 15 at 7:07pm
Hmmmm. If you are sailing assymetrics or foiling where things can happen quickly and with expensive and life-threatening consequences, maybe you would welcome a set of simple rules. Isn't that the way the AC rules are going, after all?
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