Is Racing Allowed?

Originally posted by 423zero Presumably you will have to tell 'Track and trace', you will be very popular, everyone you have met will have to self isolate for 3 weeks.

Finally found out what a close contact is, someone you have been close to 2 metres from for 15 minutes or more and face to face meetings of less than one metre, plus household members.

There are so many negative posts on this topic

This horrendous virus may be with us for years. So simply sitting back and constantly coming up with the 'but what if....' negative comments achieves nothing.

We can all do that and, if we want a world with no risk, we will stay in bed

So many people are putting in so much effort to get us out sailing, back to work, shopping etc etc but its so easy to criticise and come up with reasons not to do anything.

There is risk in all aspects of life - even sitting behind a keyboard and constantly pointing out the bleeding obvious.

If one is so risk averse - stay at home, hope someone else sorts out everything for you one day, oh - and be careful filling the kettle for cocoa, using a toaster, walking up stairs etc - its a dangerous world

Be positive or at least helpful ?

Originally posted by A2Z Originally posted by Mozzy Originally posted by 423zero Presumably you will have to tell 'Track and trace', you will be very popular, everyone you have met will have to self isolate for 3 weeks. 14 days, not three weeks. And it's not everyone you met. It's people you've had 'close contact' with. Which, if you were social distancing properly should really be no-one at a sailing club.  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works But if you they social distancing properly they probably wouldn’t have caught it in the first place.

Do we need to apply a bit of Mr Bumble's "The law is an ass"? I'm not sure even Dickens foresaw the extent we have been overcome by the (American) rules-based approach, never mind contingency fee ambulance-chasers.

The trouble with a rules-based approach is that the actual objective gets lost in the observance, or working around, of the words defining the rules/law. Surely a more sensible approach is to look at what are we trying to achieve and  the best ways to achieve it. 

No practicable set of rules can cover every situation, location and circumstance. But some core principles and guidelines can give a framework that get to the right result without the shenanigans that lawyers (professional or bar-room variety) get up to.

Back to the sailing, we have 5 gentle-gradient concrete launching slips and 8 jetties various of decent lengths and a good sized boat and car park. We have a cart-puller that can be used to move ribs and 2.4s about single-handed. We have a race-box computer system that can be operated by one person. How can a set of generic laws cover that, a shingle beach and committee boats, never mind golf? 

So I’m happy with applying personal responsibility, common sense and letting each club/location determine what works for them. What I am struggling with here is the inference that a difficult circumstance in one club provides a basis for preventing something at another, even though it is adherent to distancing and everything else. And I really struggle with the questioning of others’ judgements without a full understanding of their particular circumstances and also deriding others’ appraisal of risk.

Oh, and compared to eejits jumping of Durdle-door, creating heath fires with barbecues and leaving disgusting detritus everywhere, it seems to me the law has far greater challenges than a few of us going racing in a demonstrably safe way.

Edited by fab100 - 05 Jun 20 at 9:22am