Shortened course

What is the correct way to round the mark when the race is shortened ? Here is the story... The course was to leave the mark to port, and on to the next mark. But due to a massive reduction in wind and the slower boats may not finish, the course was shortened. The club line was the opposite end of the lake, to the next mark in question, which meant the mark needed to be left to starboard or loop around.  All boats left the mark to starboard and finished but over a cup of tea a "rules Guru" started to try and reason which was was correct. So can anyone give the correct way to do it, is it either.....

Hmm. not quite clear about this. Is this sketch roughly right as regards the situation?

Green being the course that was set, red being the course that was actually sailed?

It does depends completely on the SIs etc, but unless there is something very specific going on I think it depends on whether the mark was defined as a rounding mark or a passing mark. I believe the default is a passing mark...

In that case, if the port hand mark is a rounding mark then the string rule applies, and cyan is correct. If on the other hand its a passing mark then competitors would be within their rights to sail the purple course and peel off to the finish as soon as the shorten flag appears, because they will still have left the mark to port. For red to be correct there would have to be something quite complicated in the SIs I think.
But clearly red was the sane thing to do in the circumstances!


Edited by JimC - 31 Jan 11 at 6:43am

Its an interesting point the passing mark thing. After a particularly awkward protest/unwise course setting incident last year we're considering putting in an SI that all marks are rounding marks unless defined otherwise on the course diagram.

Wind was shifting, and there had been several course changes on the beach while rigging. RO tried to set a "one of these will be a beat" course. The windward mark was originally stbd: once many people had launched it was changed again to port as per sketch, with black being the intended course. We don't use passing marks, so have no way of distinguishing passing marks from rounding marks on the CB.
Protest was about some sailors having missed the change from stbd to port rounding and rounding incorrectly, but once we analysed the situation we realised that blue was a legal course...



Edited by JimC - 01 Feb 11 at 12:21am

Originally posted by Brass if the pegboard had an actual string touching the marks, that, in my opinion makes them rounding marks

Our opinion too! But if you have to change the course on the CB after sailors have launched then, but only then, its a problem if you manage to set a course with a problem like that one. Its a once every five years incident I guess, and only likely to happen if the RC is rushed trying to get the race off on time and deal with changing conditions, but still worth avoiding if you can do it without causing more problems than you solve.

Edited by JimC - 01 Feb 11 at 7:45am