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Jack Sparrow 
Really should get out more 
Joined: 08 Feb 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 2965 |
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 Topic: Simple Racing RulesPosted: 19 Aug 15 at 10:57am |
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      this is what land yachts use
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Wobble
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Joined: 26 Jul 10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 44 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 11:17am |
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I've come late to the thread, but I think the key to the issue is in this post, which has been echoed in several others. This confirms me in my belief that the problem with the rules is that while they are written down they ultimately follow a common law model based on case precedent. This is a daft recipe that inevitably results in a never-ending tangle of interpretation and revision, like actual common law, which provides endless work for lawyers who exploit the confusion. (Yes, we will have to ban lawyers from the sport for a few years, or maybe decades, in order to establish our new system). So, as implied in the various simplified codes suggested, we should scrap the precedent approach and aim to achieve as clear as possible a code that is not subject to the vagaries of individual protest outcomes. Surely anyone who has been in a protest room can see how arbitrary the process is in practice? It has been argued that most clubs and fleets get by just fine under the current system of organized chaos. I would suggest that they get by because no one can challenge the rule bullies, who tend to be the more experienced sailors, so a sort of surface stability is established under which most disputes don't go to the protest room, precisely because of the general confusion, but are settled essentially through bluff and spoof. We all know that a tiny minority actually know the rules enough to apply them with precision. This self-perpetuating status quo is the unsatisfactory reality for most. My own response to it has evolved to trying my best to follow one rule: avoid all other boats at all times if at all possible, because the rules, and their interpretation, can not be trusted. I think this is the most reasonable position to take, but it does cost in terms of places when competing against/playing chicken with the sharks, who in my experience mostly are not the top sailors, but the second-rankers desperate to keep others down. As has already been said, this discussion, and the near consensus shown, in itself is evidence enough that things should change. The place to start that change is the system that produces rules that are endlessly reinterpreted and for which there is no authoritative interpretation without resort to case law.
Edited by Wobble - 19 Aug 15 at 11:21am |
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PeterG
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Joined: 12 Jan 08 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 822 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 11:31am |
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So, as implied in the various simplified codes suggested, we should scrap the precedent approach and aim to achieve as clear as possible a code that is not subject to the vagaries of individual protest outcomes. Surely anyone who has been in a protest room can see how arbitrary the process is in practice?
I doubt many would disagree in principle with that, but it ignores the reality that the "simple" rule set you quote is far less clear about exactly what is meant in each situation, and in terms of how things are defined than the existing rules (in their plain form without the cases). There's a good reason why the case law has developed over the years, even if the need for it is less than ideal, and that is that real world racing throws up a range of issues about exactly what is meant that simply don't arise when people try and throw together a set of ideal rules propping up the bar, or keyboard, until they are actually picked apart by use. In practice of course, the issue about case law and precedence is only something that ever affects a very small number of racing incidents at the highest level, most club and open meeting sailors will never have to worry about lawyers or precedence throughout their lives, so it's not something we should get too worked up about.
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Peter
Ex Cont 707 Ex Laser 189635 DY 59 |
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kneewrecker
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Joined: 09 Apr 14 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1586 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 11:35am |
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I wouldn't call someone using the rules correctly to their advantage a bully, if some of us (me firmly included) haven't picked up a rules book since 1986 and feel we get on by just fine 'rubbing along' with some general principles, then I guess we need to accept that we can have our ass handed to us if we get in a sticky situation at an event or end of the fleet outside our comfort zone.
The rules need to be as they are for the top of the game (even the lower tiers of opens and regional champs etc use them with correct adherence), so if us club muppets are happy mincing around in organised confusion, and readily happy to discuss any on the water incidents in the bar rather than the formal setting of a kangaroo court, then so be it.... why change anything?
Edited by kneewrecker - 19 Aug 15 at 11:44am |
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JohnJack
Far too distracted from work 
Joined: 12 Mar 13 Online Status: Offline Posts: 246 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 12:02pm |
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I think the rules need to look at overtaking down wind.
We are in Championship Season so all along the southcoast as we speak there is someone in the midfleet rounding the windward mark and stuffing high on the reach with a gaggle of faster boats trying to get over them. Happens allot in Handicap racing as well. We struggle on our lake when with the kite up and trying to overtake slower Mono rigged boats they stuff us up well above the course to the next mark. Once there is sufficient overlap the lower boat shouldn't be allowed to point further up
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Wobble
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Joined: 26 Jul 10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 44 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 12:04pm |
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Fair point. The simplified rule sets suggested probably are too simple, because they set out to contrast with the existing setup. Maybe the middle way is to adopt a larger code of rules that is frozen, and not subject to revision willy-nilly via case law, and that is altered only after some structured consideration, as in statute law.
They don't encounter case law because they take steps to avoid it, for pragmatic reasons, such as having a life! That doesn't mean it's good that the rules are compromised in that way.
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iGRF
Really should get out more
Joined: 07 Mar 11 Location: Hythe Online Status: Offline Posts: 6499 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 12:21pm |
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Damn right we do and generally I'll tell you we're off to the horizon if you try and go above with a kite, go below, use your greater sail area. Logic also suggests you should go below, going high you're more likely going to have to either bear off down on us if you get gusted or go over.. Now I shall wear my sailing with a kite hat.. t**sers in mono rigs always go too high on the first reach so you tactically should go low, even if you also have a mono rig, work a bit harder and you'll come out ahead at the gybe and with an inside track with water at the mark. That said, on gusty lakes that doesn't always work for mono rigs, where, going high you get the gust first and ride it down ahead of those below. Not that this has anything at all to do with rules.. just saying..  Edited by iGRF - 19 Aug 15 at 12:24pm |
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iiiiitick
Far too distracted from work
Joined: 19 May 15 Online Status: Offline Posts: 240 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 12:26pm |
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Yes, well put. We have two sailors at our club (one related to me) and another sailing the same boat (of which name I dare not speak for fear of raising ire). We all just chug along shouting at each other but the aforementioned pair are very closely matched in sailing ability and detailed rules. My! how they try to out rule each other as a way of gaining advantage. Never a cross word however. I went to an RYA rule seminar a few years ago...made little sense to me. "If you are looking right, you are in the right".
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Chris 249
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Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 12:26pm |
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Wobbler, can you give us an example of this code that can simply and easily cover all situations?
Personally I've not found the protest room to be arbitrary, but then I've only ever been inside them about three times; once as a jury member, once as a protestee and once as a protester. On each occasion, it got down to a simple question of fact. Then again, I don't know many of the appeals precedents either, and don't think that they really have much impact on the sport in reality.
Edited by Chris 249 - 19 Aug 15 at 12:57pm |
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Chris 249
Really should get out more
Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 15 at 12:34pm |
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The rules should just be changed so the overtaking boats with their big rigs have to keep well above the slower boats.  Nothing worse than some *&^%$%$ coming past 2" to windward, blanketing you terribly, and then whining when you try to fend them off. If they want an easy overtaking move then they should just go by two or three lengths to windward.In some hot one design fleets I know it's accepted that when the fast guys are coming through on the reach after a bad first reach, they either go way up or way down, because no matter what class, anyone trying to come just to windward of a boat on the reach is going to get luffed. If you are faster, stay clear! I may add that our quickest bit of kit is the fastest or second fastest out of the 150 or so active racing boats in our city, and my slowest being a Radial which is one of the slower classes, so this POV is from someone who sees two sides of the story.
Edited by Chris 249 - 19 Aug 15 at 12:36pm |
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