Originally Posted by orphan
"To continue through a tight crossing that you have a chance to get through clean and without causing the other boat to take avoiding action is RACING".

70% is not a tight crossing. It is a 30% chance of getting the boat in the right in trouble. If I have a crossing boat I am not going to wait till the last minute to take action. I am going to take it as soon as I feel that may be a possibility that we will make contact. It may be something a little as easing the main or a slight course adjustment. I call protest and you say it was a liget cross. You going to do turns?
The problem here is the Cat mentality that we don't like to go to protest. So now I have to decide to let you get away with what you thought you had a 70% chance of doing or going to protest and wasting time.

My other option is to hold course and possibly take your rudders off.



You guys need to take a breath. The boat on starboard is not going to be in trouble. He's not going to hit me and I'm not going to hit him. He might have to duck me slightly if my skipper wiggles the helm or somebody gets a non-favorable puff/shift, or an odd wave. I don't ever intentionally put myself the position where the other boat can't take avoiding action but if I think I have a reasonable chance to cross cleanly in an important crossing situation, I'm probably going to take it. This is tactics. It's racing 101. I do this often as does my competition to me. It's rare that I make a mistake on a crossing but it does happen from time to time.

I'm probably one of the top gentlemanly racers on the race course and have four or five thousand miles of racing under my belt. You can't call every cross with perfection. Some of them are close enough (AND BY CLOSE, I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT A COLLISION) but to clear without causing the other boat to maneuver differently. If I ended up wrong and the other guy had anything near a reasonable argument that he had to wiggle the helm to avoid, I'm taking my penalty. I'm sorry that you guys can't seem to understand this concept - but it's one that happens every regatta to nearly everyone at the front of the fleet.

Again, YOU DON'T HAVE TO HIT SOMEONE OR BE HIT TO HAVE UNDERTAKEN A RISKY CROSSING AND FAILED. Although I'm not planning on it ever, the starboard boat also has an obligation to avoid contact if possible. If I'm entering a situation where he might not be able to avoid contact, then I have really dorked the donky...we're not talking about this situation. I even take eye contact into account and factor this into how confident I am that they know I'm there when I'm weighing the situation.

I'm finding that I'm repeating myself here - so I'm done with this conversation unless you guys can find some other point you want to belabor.

Jake Kohl