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I think my confusion lies in the way "tacticat" defines completion of the tack, not the way the rule applies on the water.


Pete,
I programmed the rules engine. There are many many holes, but, I'm pretty proud of how rights are calculated when one of the boats is tacking. It's literally 'from the book':
- When the boat starts the tack ALL rights are preserved while in the initial tack.
- When the boat reaches the wind direction it loses all rights.
- When the boats reaches the new closehauled angle it gets again the privileges of the new tack. A problem there... the normal tack includes falling off a bit to get speed and go smoothly again to the closehauled angle, from the rules perspective the boat has all rights associated to the tack since it passed first time the closehauled angle.
- If the user decides to stop the normal tack procedure, (rudders centered before he reached the closehauled angle, tacticat ENTER key) he recovers the rights immediatly. I aggree this is not normal, but, what if i decide to finish tack and start in the new angle on a course that is very slow ?(and i know this is understatement). How can you protest?

aestela.


Aestela,

The current Sailing Rules apply the sailing tack (starboard / port) to the boat that is tacking as soon as it passes head to wind. This seems to be a little different than the Tacticat Rules. HOWEVER, I think it makes better sense to have them the way you have designed them for Tacticat - sailors just need to understand how it's applied and all is well (it took me a couple of times).

I've seen ONLY one situation (yesterday) where a penalty was clearly applied incorrectly. Two of us were approaching the gate sailing downwind, I was on port and there was a starboard tacker. I wanted the left mark and gybed about 6 boat lengths away for it and clear of a starboard boat. The starboard boat decided he wanted the right end of the gate and gybed. We collided while we were both under "computer control" nearing the end of our gybes. We had both clearly passed dead down wind and I was on starboard and the other boat now on port - but I was shown in black and penalized because we were both still in a gybing manuever...That's not a big deal but if you see an easy workaround....

I think you have done a stellar job with the programming and modification of the rules and program for the simulator. I agree that the programmed rules are not quite perfect, however, neither is applying the rules in real life...you "roll the dice" when you enter a protest room anyway so, as in real life, I find it simpler to just try and avoid any conflict in the simulator or on the race course. I like to beat 'em with my brain, not my bow.

Jake Kohl