Luffing rights

Originally posted by Oatsandbeans Don't quite know. Just my attempt to deal with 2 issues at the same time -rule simplication and the problems of agressive sailors that think its really smart to get into agressive luffing matches- not really what I go sailing for.

Yep, being luffed is normally only a problem for people who attempt to pass aggressively close to windward.

One alternative to the rules as they currently work would be to have something like no boat is allowed to sail above or below its proper course whilst boats are overlapped, which would add a lot of complication and fundamentally change things.
It would also encourage faster boats to beat up slower boats by passing aggressively close to windward, which would make pursuit races pretty ugly experiences for the mid fleet.
If you wanted to avoid that then you might have to add something like boats passing to windward have to maintain 2 boat lengths separation, which makes the rules even more complicated still.
And then, as well as making the rules much more complicated, we've put competitors into a considerable straightjacket as to where they can sail.
Then imagine the situation with 4 or 5 boats overlapped, all of which probably have different proper courses.
"Sail your proper course"
"I can't, two boats below his proper course is higher and I have to go up"

Originally posted by Rupert The sentence "I'll luff you off the course if you go to windward of me" is one I don't hear much any more... maybe I simply sail in more gentlemanly classes these days? Or were sailors farmore rude and aggressive in the olden days?

You should come down to hythe and try taking me to weather, you'll hear it soon enough, we still sail triangle sausage.

And today I enjoyed a sail in an L3k with a decent crew, in fact it was twin commodore powered as we had a visit from the Redoubt banditerati, no luffing today mind, it was blowing top end of a five and only 7 boats finished out of twenty starters, amazing how a drop of wind stops all that shouting, that and getting a mouth full of brine everytime i went to open the source of all wisdom...

Not that that wisdom stopped us getting caned by a couple of kids in a Feva, I've got a picture of them somewhere I shall off and find it..

Here they are last week at the KSSA, it was probably windier today, they finished 3rd on corrected. Hannah and Alex

Edited by iGRF - 27 Sep 15 at 5:51pm