Being Daft in Handicap Races

Originally posted by olly_love

   sort of related to the "match racing" thread, but not quite.

We were purely sailing the Dash for giggles, even the good b14s stood no chance and we're not good. Still, it does irritate a little when people do deliberately daft things.

One that happened a couple of times was on the reach legs. Our spinnaker isn't exactly cut for reaching. So they were tricky legs. We'd come up behind a 400 (or other, but one incident that stuck in the mind was with a 400- similar things happened with furballs, Ospreys etc) that's able to hold its kite higher. We'd be unable to get under to leeward, as passing close we didn't have enough extra mast height, and passing wide we'd go too far down wind. We couldn't though pass above, as at the first hint of overlap they'd start luffing. They'd luff so much that it was actually hurting their progress- much more than simply letting us ghost past them would. Eventually there was a slight shift that allowed us to climb up, over and round them- but in all this the 400 had probabbly been hurt just as much as we had.

Is this just the sort of thing whereby you need to seek the individuals out in the bar later on and explain gently to them why it isn't really on in a handicap race and that it isn't healthy for their race position? If it was the dying minutes of the pursuit race I'd have no complaints. Do we need an etiquette guide for when multiple, very different classes, clash?

(see also: Fireballs needing to understand that a B14 requires 2 1/1 times the mark room that a Fireball would require- this from one of the other Bs)