John,
Comments interspersed.
J. Allan wrote:
"Gene Fuller" wrote in message
,snip
As you know, we get some really high level officials on board for
Lakefest, with national and international race officers and judges.
To a person they told us the closed start/finish line was unworkable.
The RRS do not really accommodate this closure, and anyone appealing
a DSQ would probably win.
Could you elaborate in general terms why the international jurists have
said this is so?
Note that I used the word "unworkable", not illegal, immoral, etc. The
Changes to the SI's are not trivial, as demonstrated in this newsgroup
thread. Getting it right in all conceivable circumstances is not easy. I
cannot find any appeal is the ISAF case book that deals with this
subject, but I will guess that most SI's that attempt to deal with issue
would come up short.
What would be the problem with the following SI based on RRS 29.1
"If, other than when a boat is _finishing_, any part of a boat's hull,
crew or equipment is on the side of the finish line farthest from the
last mark, the boat shall sail completely to the side of the finish line
nearest the last mark before _finishing_. This modifies RRS 28.1"
I don't think this will work. In many cases, perhaps most cases, the
entire reason for attempting to close the line is to avoid confusion
during a multilap race. In such circumstances your proposed rule would
be violated constantly. Boats have a perfectly legitimate reason to be
on the wrong side of the finishing line in the middle of the race.
Again, this does not demonstrate that it is impossible to set up such a
limitation, but it is not at all trivial.
This could be elaborated along the lines of RRs 30.2/3 to provide for a
percentage penalty or a DSQ (and also allow it to be "switched on/off"
by a flag signal depending on the conditions).
If your club is willing to go along with a valiant attempt to modify
the rules it may work, but perhaps not if you have genuine sea lawyers
involved. I agree that a "request" is not a good idea.
OK, the "request" situation works to keep already-finished boats clear
of the finish line. If the prospect of a "little chat' with a flag
officer about sportsmanship and co-operating with the RC isn't enough to
induce people to co-operate, then I'm sorry for you. Obviously,
district regattas are a little different.
Most sailors believe in sportsmanship, and some even practice it. The
"request" is fine until someone disagrees. I have no issue with informal
agreements and requests, but what happens if there is a violation,
intentional or not? Does the RC ignore it? Other sailors might ask for
redress. Can another boat lodge the protest? Probably, unless the SI's
deal with that possibility. What is the penalty? Does a 720-rule apply?
We gave it up for Lakefest to avoid the pitfalls. To maintain sanity
of the RC we have changed all the courses to remove the need for a
closed line. Any boat crossing the line other than starting or
finishing is way off course, so the number of incidents is very small.
If you can't get longitudinal offsets as illustrated in RRS Appendix K
Addendum A, then maybe you could try a lateral offset as shown in the
Match Racing SI 10.1 at
http://www.sailing.org/matchrace/mrssi.doc
Maybe this is what RG is suggesting.
As to your question of wording the SI's, the definition seems pretty
clear. An "area so designated by the sailing instructions [is] also an
obstruction". There is no mention of why the area might be selected,
such as being a prohibited area. There is no automatic designation
other than one that is safety related. It is not allowed to change
the RRS definitions. Therefore the SI's must explicitly designate the
area as an obstruction.
But I think the discussion in this thread indicates that you don't want
to make the line an obstruction, and confer rights to room.
The obstruction issue is very easily handled, and I do not have the
slightest problem with making the line an obstruction. However, one must
figure out how to close the line in the first place.
snip
John
Regards,
Gene Fuller