Safety SIs in Conflict with Fundamental Rule 4

Originally posted by Brass

Originally posted by Brass

Originally posted by sargesail

Noah,
I agree.  I think Brass' view is overly skewed by different waterborne regulatory frameworks down south, and by an emphasis on home club rather than open circuit competition.
That may well be.

But I think you guys may be taking a somewhat Victorian view of the rights of the seagoing British Subject.

Whatever, your club doesn't want to be around when some pompous authority figure declares that you stood idly by until the 'responsible authorities' intervened.

You might certainly be in a position where the  presence and the disposition to interfere, of government authorities is more limited than I am used to, and you very much have the RYA to thank for that (Education before Regulation etc), but, moral issues aside, if you want to keep it that way, you need to be proactive about safety, and 'stay ahead of the curve' of government regulation (without running scared).

All that said, please don't take me for a 'safety fanatic'.  I often have disagreements with those folk about endless, and unrealistic intrusion of safety concerns.  It's about keeping a balance.

His answer also seems to refer to the general: ie all boats directed to cease racing, not the specific of a single boat given direction by a rescue crew.

Indeed, what I had in mind was that the race committee would apply their decision to to all boats after a certain point or time, although the requirement for compliance with a direction would only apply to single boats to whom a direction had been given.

I took this approach deliberately:  If only some individual boats are subject to a penalty (of DSQ, DNF, or whatever), while their competitors who may be behind them are not, this is bound to cause dissatisfaction.  If all the tailenders are in the same pointscore position together, then you have removed at least one cause of complaint.

Another approach, which I didn't suggest because it's more complicated, and might expose a race committee to allegations that they were manipulating the results, would be to introduce a new race committee signal saying "All boats that have not already finished shall be scored Finishers to date plus one and are advised to return ashore".

I also do not at all follow how direction to a boat by the RC not to continue racing constitutes anything other than a removal of that boat's responsibility for the decision, and thus is in conflict with Rule 4.

It may be 'in conflict with', or as a judge might say 'in tension with' rule 4.

The question, however, for the purpose of rule 86.1 is whether it changes rule 4.

There are already circumstances in the rules where the race committee can make a decision that affects whether a boat continues racing, such as rule 32 abandoning after starting.

Maybe after some abstruse judicial reasoning which is a bit above my head, it might be decided that there was an invalid change to rule 4, but there is sufficient doubt in my mind at present to say that I don't think a reasonably worded SI would be invalid.

One of the factors that influences me is that I think it's better for judges not to interfere in the bona fide reasonable attempts of the race committee to ensure safety.

This is all the more so, where there is the fall-back position that while the SI was not invalid, any particular direction by a safety boat may be an improper action, giving rise to redress.

I can call on an example.  I recollect (but can't find) a thread on here where a sailor was told to retire by a safety boat crew because they were bleeding from a finger.  Imagine if a SI of the kind mentioned here were in play....and the sailor either complied, and requested redress, given their own assessment, Monty Python style, that it was a mere flesh wound.  Or continued and were DSQ either with or without a hearing.

How do you think that would/should play out Brass?

First, please don't think that I don't appreciate the harm that can be done by over-enthusiastic safety boat crews, both to boats and to your competitive position.  As I said in a previous post, that's an issue that race officers have to be very careful about.

On the face of it, the scenario you describe was unreasonable and silly.

But I can imagine (not too unrealistically) a situation:  little 8 year old in a Cadet dinghy with a gung-ho 12 year old skipper, bleeding profusely, crying, shivering etc etc:  suddenly a 'responsible adult' stepping in and getting the kid ashore looks very reasonable.

If the direction was clearly unreasonable (ask the PRO/CRO what he/she thought about it and he/she says "Aw sh*t, the safety boat did WHAT?"), and the boat's score was made significantly worse, then I would be wanting to give redress.

One of the benefits of my scheme of giving every boat behind the cut off the same score of Finishers plus 1, is that no boat's score is made worse, so there would be no entitlement to redress.