The leader in the race missed the skippers' meeting and failed to navigate the course as described in the SIs and course diagram which included marks of the course, distance, and bearing. The rest of the black sheep except for a couple boats followed in blind faith and then scapegoated the RC for "complicating" the course. I decided to deep - six the race for the N 20s.
Again, please don’t take this the wrong way, just trying to understand the methodology.
So let me review the facts; the leader of the race missed the skippers meeting and this is an excuse for not knowing the course and other racers followed him therefore missing the mark and complaining that the race course was bad? Few questions, what if the leader decided to quit the race because of……. and the other followed him? Would you have still DQ’d the others? Were the instructions posted anywhere? I mean as a race committee chairperson this is something I always do as well make sure each racer has a copy in their race entry packet. And for the others outside of the leader, were the instructions articulated at the skippers meeting and if so were there any questions from the group that needed clarification? Certainly you will agree there is really no excuse for NOT KNOWING THE COURSE.
As for the other “blind faith followers” what the heck, that is racing, and they should have sailed their own race, or did they miss the meeting too? If I may, and again please don’t take this as an insult, I would have asked each of the racer about the course they sailed and disqualified them or scored then as a DNF, but to disqualify an entire race? In all my years of racing; first this has never happened - that is a race committee DQing an entire race, and with the exception of one event that I will get into later, many of the sailors I have raced with are honest and will be the first to admit they didn’t sail the course as noted in the initial sailing instruction or violate the RRS, unless of course they are a cheater or are in collusion with a cheater which has been known to happen.
They need to buff out their navigational skills on catamarans:-)
There are not many cat sailors I know that would think of doing a distance race without some sort of GPS navigation, unless of the race rules specified other. I think if you polled this group you will find my statement pretty close to the mark or in this case the missed one!!!! Did you have the “lats and longs” in the instructions and if so why did you do this?
This was the only Class that made an issue of the course. A heavy rainstorm did play a role. I was running the windsurfer course when the first N 20s arrived at the finish, and I reported to my RC assistants that those boats missed a mark. They did!
So if I am reading this right, in place of pulling the skippers from the NACRA 20 class together that afternoon or evening, explaining the situation that you were confronted with, presenting a few remedies, and letting THEM decide THEIR fate, you the race committee decided to pull the plug and penalize the few entrants that played by the rules and sail a good race. Dude!!!!!!!
I had mentioned earlier we had an issue like this a while back. Very similar, a few racers didn’t round a mark that were part of the initial printed race instructions and when we all got back to the beach and addressed the committee for a protest it sort of fell of deaf ears, that is the race committee/promoter was looking to favor a few specific entrants at the expense of the others and decided to change the rules at that time. Oh! That race died a quick death as many of us decide not to enter it the next year.
Again, please don’t take this the wrong way as I am looking at this from afar, but is sounds to me like decisions were made to penalize those that did the right thing and favor those that didn’t, or your dealing with some cheaters and a race committee failed to take this into consideration.
And for laughs and grins, why not post the result of all the NACRA 20 class races that is both Saturdays and Sundays finishes. Like I said, for laughs and grins!!!!
