Moving the windward mark

Depending on the course it may be possible to juggle things so the course length doesn't change significantly. If that's the case then I don't see a problem.

However if you genuinely believe your finishing place has been made worse then you make it a request for redress :

62.1 A request for redress or a protest committee’s decision to consider redress shall be based on a claim or possibility that a boat’s score in a race or series has been or may be, through no fault of her own, made significantly worse by (a) an improper action or omission of the race committee, protest committee, organizing authority, equipment inspection committee or measurement committee for the event, but not by a protest committee decision when the boat was a party to the hearing;

However changing a mark is not ny itself a wrong action, and so its quite an uphill challenge this one.

It could make a difference if average lap times are being used and the time it takes to complete a lap is changed by the movement.

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

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

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