windshifts and luffing rights

Originally posted by Rupert

Originally posted by Rupert

You know, I have been sailing and using the rules all my life, but it still took several reads through that to figure out who would have been in the right or wrong depending exactly what happened when. 

Given that 2 people's view of what happened will be different -  "you were past head to wind" compared to "I bore off before I was head to wind" in the protest room, with neither lying, is it any wonder that at club level all but the most basic rule breaks are dealt with with a shrug?

And that is before you have to worry about how you got into the position in the 1st place. 

The discussion of this scenario was four or five times as long as it might have been because:
facts not given about:
whether one or both boats passed head to wind
what tack boats were on
whether either boat actually did not keep clear
red-herrings
rule 17 (as it turned out);
'can't luff past head to wind'
additional scenario:  other boat did not pass head to wind and bore away and made contact.
This led to the discussion extending over several 'what-if' situations, instead of a simple 'who broke what rule' analysis.
The 'two persons' different views' problem, while it underlies probably most protests, only really comes to light in the protest room, or the bar afterwards:  on the water, each sailor 'calls it as he or she sees it', so in their mind, they 'know' the facts (or else completely overlook some relevant fact), and apply the limited number of rules they think are in play.

I thought working through the rule 17 issue was interesting:  bear in mind the non-breach of rule 17 was caused by the wind-shift moving the boats' proper course around:  it's a fairly restricted scenario.

Oh and by the way Go the Wallabies.