First boat in is Royal Green.
2nd is Key Sailing
3rd is Velocity 1

Two more boats will be arriving within 20 minutes -- Royal Yellow and Cat Fever.

The rest of the boats are not in sight. Light is getting too low for pictures, so Rick is headed to his room to post a story and pictures of the finish. He thinks they should be pretty good, because the surf does look kind of formidable.

Also, all of the Royal teams will be having a discussion tonight about why they didn't use their paddles this morning to get out through the surf.

Hot Link to TopoFusion.com Thursday recap with the others:
http://vimeo.com/4657815

What did Mischa do wrong? Get to close to a space shuttle?



Source: http://www.tybee500.com/results/1/original/09_tybee_results.pdf?1242361564

From our friends over at SA:


Mischa got a 40 minute penaly but is still very much in the lead!

Thanks tony, I guessed as much!

Yeah but we know that the NA A-cat fleet has got the real talent !

How about Carrie Howe erasing a 2 hour loss (due to repairs) in the very next day ?

Wouter

There are a lot of po'd sailors on the beach over Mischa's penalty (or lack thereof).

Team Zhik, Magic Marine, and Adrenaline got 15 minute penalty for being OCS (even though no "I" flag was flown).

Team Seacats White gets an 8 hour penalty for breaking a rudder casting and gets a choice of a DSQ for not being able to finish by 3:00am or an 8 hour penalty for trailering up to the next start (they took the 8 hr and are now in last place).

Mischa gets a 40 minute penalty for cutting a corner that the entire fleet was furnished the GPS co-ordinates, lectured at the skippers meeting on the severity of violating the zone, and threatened with DSQ as a penalty, however in reality he gets a 40 minute penalty. To make it worse, he was in a pack of 5 boats, and 4 of them realized it was the wrong mark, dropped their spins, and were the last 4 boats to round the mark. Meanwhile Mischa cuts the corner into into the lead.

The mood is ugly on the beach...

Here the combined fleet REAL elapsed time results after completing leg 4.

With REAL elapsed time I mean the elapsed time minus the penalties.

This should show how well the F18's are doing against the N20's boat for boat. Look pretty equal so far.

Also note how Carrie would be well into second place if she hadn't spend 2 hours during leg 2 repairing their rudders. She would still be over an hour in front of Lohmayer on the N20.

The nice even spread of the other F18's over the whole fleet suggests that racing the F18 straight up against the N20's in the event is pretty viable.

Wouter

At what point in the leg did this occur?

How much distance did Mischa make as a result. How much time did he save? (not the same thing).

Where did the other boats end up that did follow the correct course?

I'm sorry to hear that

Wouter

Why are ANY of your questions remotely relevant? The course was clear. The penalty was clear (but apparently not). So, if the RC ISN'T going to enforce their own rule why have it at all? I can certainly understand the feelings of those that are frustrated.

It will be interesting to see if the RC can enforce the exclusion zone next year.

The penalty doesnt seem very clear to me, it just says "at the discretion of the Race Committee".


From the Sailing instructions:


I guess a 40-minute penaly could be considered "severe"?
Maybe some though if they had missed a mark they would have to sail back to it and round it anyway?
But that would mean that they where also in the exclusion zone right? (in fact admitting so by sailing back?).

" cutting a corner " That's troublesome.

first, they fessed up to cutting the corner and that's why they got a penalty. So...that's a good start. In my opinion, the race committee leaves a huge open door in the rules by not clarifying the penalty in the SI's. Their penalty varies leaving you to wonder if the penalty would change based on who it was an in what position they were in. In contrast to previous years, it was not announced that cutting a corner would result in a DSQ. The phrase was this year; "MAY result in a DSQ".

I was in about 7th place around the first (correct) buoy and watched the boats that missed it. I was pretty close to the lead (of the boats that rounded the correct buoy) when we started back for the beach and Mischa was nearly out of sight on the horizon. 40 Minutes is probably not much more than the advantage he gained...They owned their mistake, but I don't think the RC applied enough penalty for not sailing around the right marks this time OR the last time (the last time this happened there ended up being NO penalty).

While we're on the subject of rules in this race - how would you feel about a drifter finish where one of the boats you're working hard to beat and are neck and neck with makes a left turn into the surf 100 yards shy of the finish line and has their ground crew run them north to the finish line and beats you by 5 to 8 minutes?

Thanks Jake. I'll leave this to those with more wisdom than I.

According to Mike's post the RC announced at the competitors meeting that a DSQ would be awarded for violators. So if it was said it needs to be enforced or anything said at the competitors meeting can be simply disregarded. There is something to be said for "Mean what you say and say what you mean!"

Now if they were all in the exclusion zone then yes all penalties need to be enforced. It's easy to present missing a mark it's somewhat harder to show that someone was on the wrong side of an imaginary line, not all boats have trackers.

This whole idea of assessing penalties on the fly after the fact is bullsh!t anyway, it never works out and things like these are VERY easy to make black and white.

Jake, As usual you are the voice of reason. Thank you. I am only a fan, but still hold it against the last competitor that did this. I found it hard to believe at the time. I can't imagine Mischa's reasoning, nor the RC's not making the penalty more severe. Mischa brings a lot of attention to the race, and adds money that way, but cheating is cheating. I hope next year the rules will state something like "1 hour penalty" or "disqualified". Go Seacats!

What are the rules on outside assitance? If they state that you must use the RRS, walking the boat along at all is not allowed. Perhaps the rules need tighting for next time. Perhaps GC's are only allowed to help within the bounds of the finish line? And you must SAIL when you are not within the bounds of the line (allowing you to pull the boat across if the wind is light, but not walk the boat a mile along the surf line instead of sailing).


Sounds like some tighening up may be required.

As for Mischa, sounds like he fesssed up and got a hit for it. I suppose tyhe question is was it enough or too much?

Hoping for wind, but at the moment it is "windless," and the surf is about the same as yesterday.
BREAK OUT THE PADDLES!
Rick

Meh...

The race is still on and most boats are looking competitive, the wind looks good today, and updates are hard enough to come by. Please don't crowd this kind of rules mess in here, please.

You got problems, go tell it to the judge.

edit: well, the wind did look good today...