Start Line Collision

Spoke to L tonight. He says W was sat on the line ready to trigger pull. L approached from below and behind sailing a higher course and hailed him to keep clear. L says W could have pulled the trigger or even just sheeted his sail in and kept clear but instead continued to sit where he was. W's boom made contact with L's boat, then W bore away across L's bows to start, with the rather comical result that his transom became entangled with L's bowsprit and extracted it from its stowed position (RS400) resulting in him towing L along 6 feet behind!

We have to remember W does not have to start to respond until L has established an overlap. Only at that point does he have to respond. I would at least expect him to pull his sails in.

Reading between the lines I suspect L's intent all along was to squeeze W over the line, which is a legitimate manoeuvre, if a little match-racey perhaps.

This suggests that L was pushing very close to W and even expecting a response prior to the overlap being established.

So presuming that L's testimony is something along the lines of the above account, whilst W will no doubt testify that L gave him insufficient room to respond, how would one deal with the ensuing protest? Clear contact, no penalty turns by either party so I guess at least one boat has to be DSQ'd.

Or both, the description suggests there should have been at least a half boat length gap given the difference in speed suggested, and a slight bear away by L to at least match heading before a fair luff. The apparent lack of response gets W even if as seems the collision may have been inevitable, and therefore leading to his strong reaction.

Regarding the bad language, it was a fair bit of "effing and jeffing" and aggressive name calling by the helm of W directed at L, which went on for a fair while from the initial contact until after the boats were eventually disentangled. L's crew was a 13 year old girl, and other junior sailors were present, which to me pushes it over the boundaries of acceptability, especially on a start line where the entire fleet was clearly within earshot.

This part should be reported to the club. At the last school team race event I umpired, a very experienced umpire made a kid spin till he was dizzy for far less, swearing would have brought immediate DSQ for his team.

One thing that some of our teams have also fed back that the aggressiveness in pre start situations often leads to L spinning, and sometimes both. L rarely wins unless overlap has been established and time given, including a pause in the luff if W needs more space and time, as long as they are being seaman like in attempting to keep clear.

Andy

Sorry the formatting is not great, could not put quote in italics on iPhone.



Edited by andymck - 16 Apr 14 at 4:28pm

Originally posted by Neal_g the fact L came from clear astern and went to leeward of W after the start lead to a no right to luff, so in theory the rules apply from the prepartory flag as L came from clear astern she had the option to go to windward therefore no right to luff W

Originally posted by gordon Jeffers is correct

OK. We've all had our say and most agree, based on the details given here, that W will lose his protest and should be dsq'd.

The 64 thousand dollar question is what did the protest committee decide?

Agreed which is why I put in the qualifier 'based on what we heard here'.

It will be interesting to see what the protest committee actually decides on and the why.