Rules, Collisions and Protests
The forecast for today was light wind. I arrived at the club and started rigging. I decided to use my new sail since it wouldn’t be windy and the sail wouldn’t get stretched that much.
I went out for the first race and I had a pretty good start. I was very close to Steve and Ben E offered me free beer for a week if I could beat Steve. He said that the look on his face would worth it. Unfortunately, Steve got further and further away from me and I was battling with Corbin, Tom and Ben S for 4th place. Although the wind was light I was doing quite well. I was trying to keep the wetted surface of the hull as small as possible and in the same time make sure the sail has a nice belly and enough power. Towards the end of the race and while fighting for 4th place, I was on starboard, Ben S was on port we crossed ways, I hailed “starboard” and although he tacked it was too late and I had to alter my course. He was supposed to do a 720 but he didn’t. He sailed on to take the 4th place and I was 5th. I wasn’t happy with that at all.
For the second race the wind had picked up and I was hoping things would be better. On the start, I was on starboard second from the gun and Ben E came on port (I have to say that he couldn’t really see me) and on my effort to avoid the collision I bore away and went under him. Because of that I had accelerated, so I luffed up and pushed the boom forward in order to slow down but I got in irons, In my effort to get out of there I moved on the other side and effectively I was on port with Ben E and Steve on starboard. As the wind wasn’t strong enough, we were stuck there and it took as long to get out of there. I was pissed off with the whole thing, because I ended up on Ben’s and Steve’s way out of Ben’s action. It’s just, that at the moment it happened I didn’t think it would make a big difference, so I didn’t really protest it.
As soon as I could I did a 720 for being on port and on Steve’s way. As far as Ben is concerned we are even. From that point onwards, I decided that I will be ruthless and I will protest anyone who gets in my way and shouldn’t be there. Anyway, I recovered from that incident and fought back to sail ahead of all those I thought I should and claim 5th place.
During the second race I saw a few collisions and people didn’t protest them. I encourage people to protest every single incident because this is the only way for new sailors to learn the rules of sailing. I encourage every new sailor to go out to buy a book that explains the racing rules of sailing and learn it back to front. This is what I am planning to do fairly soon, in order to make sure that I know when I am right and when I am wrong, especially in an open meeting. There is a list of books from Amazon, on the right on the subject. I have seen the “The Rules in Practice,
You’re right capn’, you should make loud noises whenever you’ve been infringed!
The incident from my perspective is this:
I was sat on the line on starboard running down the clock. To hold my position on the line I pushed my boom out to the port side to tack onto port without moving forwards, the plan being to then move forward half a boatlength, tack back (by pushing the boom again) and start. I looked over my shoulder, didn’t see anyone in the way so did it.
When I got onto port I saw you sailing round my transom.
Given that I hadn’t seen you up to that point there were two possible situations.
1. If you had been sailing along parallel to the line on starboard (aiming below my transom), and had planned to round up into the space to windward of me, then there was no incident. When I completed my tack I was keeping clear of you (your course parallel to the line below my position) and you are not allowed to alter course to change that if I won’t have time to remain “keeping clear” (I do not have to anticipate your change of course).
2. You were already pointing at the gap to windward of me when I tacked. My tack put us on a collision course. In this case there would’ve been a clear port/starboard incident, and I’d have to do turns.
I had no idea which of these was the case – hence when you didn’t start yelling and jumping I assumed it was situation 1 and carried on as normal, with the following incident being unfortunate but seperate.
The moral of the story is, as you say, if you think you’ve been infringed make damn sure the other person knows about it!
Hi Ben,
It was case 2 (port/starboard incident), and it is my bad that I didn’t bite your head off, there and then. The following incident I know it was separate and therefore I did my turns mainly for Steve’s sake. Don’t tell me that I should had done 2 more turns for you, because I would still be dizzy from all those turns!