Shortening course

My understanding of shortening has always been:
RO makes the shorten signal BEFORE the 1st boat to be finished rounds the last mark of the course, thus allowing finishing boats to make tactical decisions on their last leg before they start sailing it.

Today the RO did just this but a competitor then sailed directly to the line without rounding the last mark and made substantial gain.

The explanation was based on interpretation of RYA race management guide, P51.
If possible, display the signal as soon as the leading boat commences the leg to the shorten course finishing line (although the RRS states that the course shall be signalled before the first boat crosses the finishing line, thus allowing this to be a late signal).

AND RRS 32.2 If the race committee signals a shortened course,
the finishing line shall be, (in our case)
(b) at a line boats are required to cross at the end of each lap, that line;
The shortened course shall be signalled before the first boat crosses the finishing line.

I'm struggling to see the words 'go directly to the finish line'
Has anyone had experience of this? Apparently it was discussed at a recent RO course.
Thanks in advance


Edited by piglet - 25 May 15 at 8:31pm

Originally posted by piglet My understanding of shortening has always been: RO makes the shorten signal BEFORE the 1st boat to be finished rounds the last mark of the course, thus allowing finishing boats to make tactical decisions on their last leg before they start sailing it.

Not true any more. Used to be the case, but now they can put the flag up any time before the lead boat crosses the line.

Could it be that you're actually getting into something unusual in SIs? I know of at least one club where they have a fixed line, and their SIs state that the shorten course arrangements are to sail from, IIRC, the next mark the leader gets to straight to the finish line.

That still doesn't seem right against what your original post says. Surely competing the lap means going around all of the marks which your first post suggests they didn't.

My old club had this odd rule that where a fixed mark was used as part of the finish line and was also the leeward mark, then when the course was shortened the race could be finished by sailing down through the gate rather than rounding up through the gate like every other lap. That caused on more than one occasion when RO's didn't know that rule existed and didn't finish people properly.

What the race management guide says is really irrelevant. It's a guide anyway and it's certainly not part of the rules.

32.2: If the race committee signals a shortened course (displays flag S with two sounds), the finishing line shall be, (a) at a rounding mark, between the mark and a staff displaying flag S; (b) at a line boats are required to cross at the end of each lap, that line; (c) at a gate, between the gate marks. The shortened course shall be signalled before the first boat crosses the finishing line.