It must be nice to live in that perfect world where nothing ever goes wrong while sailing...ever.
I don't recall anybody claming nothing ever goes wrong. I'm just saying that you are responsible for your own boathandling, not everybody else.
This thread is about SAFETY while sailing, and the inference that with the advent of the modern spin. cat the rules might need to be looked at.
And I'm saying that safety is
everybody's responsibility, not just of boats going upwind. No matter what direction you are sailing, and no matter what sails you are using, you are expected to (1) watch where you are going, and (2) keep control of your boat.
And we have a guy who's never even sailed a modern spin cat, let alone driven one downwind in 20 knots with boats coming upwind, calling us who do, Unsafe?
Ok, let's take me out of the picture. Imagine the following scenerio:
In this example, a boat sailing downwind under spinnaker (D) has right-of-way over a boat sailing upwind (U). Both are "modern spin cats" sailing one-design (or formula) in the same class on a closed course with no non-spin boats present. The wind is blowing 20kts.
- Boat D has rounded the windward mark, set her chute, and is now sailing downwind on starboard tack "on the ragged edge of control".
- Boat U is still sailing upwind, on port tack, below the layline.
- The two boats approach each other at 25kts+ closure rate. If both boats maintain the course they are sailing, D will pass 2 boatlengths to windward of U.
- D doesn't see U behind her spinnaker. U sees D and loudly hails "Hold your course!" when they are 15 boatlengths apart.
- When the boats are 4 boatlengths apart, a gust hits and D bears away hard.
- U immediately steers away, but one second later, the boats collide. Both boats are destroyed. One of the sailors on Boat U is impaled on D's spinnaker pole.
Now I ask you, which boat was unsafe? Boat U, who kept a lookout, and acted to avoid contact when she was the give-way boat, or Boat D, who did not watch for other boats, and could not maintain her course in a puff when she was the right-of-way boat?
I'm saying, it's going to happen [a collision] no matter how much you "protect" your escape lane, as if you can even do that when some upwind coming boat suddenly tacks into your escape lane...what's the plan now Olley? Douse the spin, get by him, then reset it??
I've never hit anyone either but I won't say I never will...
If another boat is in your escape lane, and you turn down onto him in a puff, how is he supposed to avoid you? You are the one moving fast, and the one changing course in the gusts. Even if you have right-of-way, you aren't giving him room to keep clear. If that's your approach to sailing, then I have to agree - a collision is inevitable.
Sincerely,
Eric
