Trying to avoid approaching the a-mark on the port layline is probably a wise move as well. It will probably cost you more time having to avoid the starboard boats and is much riskier than if you tack a little earlier to approach some distance below the mark.

Sure, Jake, but then you miss practicing the finer points of the 2-boat circle at "A" mark when coming in on Port against a parade of stb. boats.

Gosh, the way you suggest would make racing downright civil, and you can't have that in this renegade cat fleet... we are anti-conformists, right?

Don't forget, the definition of mark room also includes the term "at the mark."

This is important, because basically, at any given time, you are either one of the following:
Approaching
At
Leaving

The key definition is At the mark, since anything before that is approaching, and after that is leaving.

Maybe Eric or Matt can find a reference, but I know that this has been discussed quite a bit at ISAF and US Sailing, and has been a topic at several seminars I've attended over the past year or two. I think there was an official call or interpretation issued recently, I just can't put a finger on it.

The discussion I am referring to sounded like common sense (you're at the mark as you are physically rounding it).

----------------

As for the port vs. starboard approach, there is an excellent quote that I read somewhere this year: "Nothing good ever happens at a layline." This is true strategically as well as tactically.

Mike

After a quick google search, I found this little blurb, quoted on several YC sites. This is aimed at kids, but is completely relevant to anyone unsure of what to do while on the water:

Racing Rules for Kids and Small Boat Tacticians
By Hugh Elliot, US Sailing Certified Judge

As a small boat skipper or tactician, I am too busy with steering or trimming to get into arcane details (of the rules). I offer the following as a lighthearted collection of very basic rules. While it mixes right of way rules with tactical rules of thumb, I find it quite a good place to start. Experience and study will fill in the blanks.

1. Don't hit other boats. Collisions are slow and arguments are slower.
2. Keep out of the way of boats in front of you.
3. Port tack boats usually have to stay out of the way of everyone else.
4. Windward boats must stay away from leeward boats.
5. The inside boat gets to go round the mark first.
6. Don't hit marks. Doing circles is slow.
7. Don't hit the committee boat. First, it is a mark (see Rule 6) and second, it really makes them mad.
8. Nothing good ever happens on a layline.
9. The port tack layline is a very ugly place.
10. Control your own destiny: stay out of the Protest Room. Protest Committees are uncontrollable: with a 100% solid case, you have a 50% chance of being DSQ.

I think #10 is meant for a potential protestee. Said another way; when in doubt, spin.

Mike

Probably about time to catch up on your reading or buy an ARC22.

This one is easy for me, since I was on the protest committee that decided it. It's US Sailing Appeal 105 here.

That one little protest hearing at the 2010 JY15 Regional Championships has ticked off so many boxes it's uncanny. Appealed to the Detroit River Yachting Association (upheld), appealed to US Sailing (upheld), included in the US Sailing Appeals Book (because it defined a significant concept) and it's a hair's breadth from being included in the ISAF Case Book (approved by the ISAF Rules Committee and only needs approval from the Council). It's been featured in Sailing World and a photo of the hearing was used to illustrate another one of Dick Rose's articles in Sailing World.


And yeah, it's a marvelous photo of the reason you rarely see me without a hat.

UM8 wanted to sail wider "to" the mark?

Hey Matt, have you seen what is developing in the AC regarding your course description? It is very clever! They are proposing that the left, port, side be colored red and that the right, starboard, side be colored green. Then, instead of the commentator always having to add the phrase "looking upwind at the course" when they refer to the left or the right, they will just say the red side or the green side. Stan Honey has already assured them that he can overlay the red and green on the appropriate sides of the course along with all the other grahics he has been throwing on the screen to make the course easier for viewers to understand what is happening. I think this is also a great idea for crewed boats to speed and clarify onboard exchanges about conditions and plans.

Yes. UM10, as leeward boat, has the right of way. UM8 is entitled to mark room - but not as much as she wants. Only enough to sail to the mark, and then room to sail her proper course while at the mark.

The funny thing was, UM8 left the mark with UM10 in her dirty air and beat UM10 in the race and the regatta. (The leeward mark they rounded was the last mark before finishing.) UM8 protested "as a matter of principle" and was convinced we had made an error in dismissing the protest - to the extent that she appealed the decision twice.

I have - and I think it's great as long as you're watching on TV. Not so good when you're trying to direct someone via radio.

It is the same problem as laying out that dotted line three boat lengths around each mark, right? Think of how much dye that would be and then what to do when you change the course!

You're welcome for the softball, Matt. The hat would probably help to also hide that look on your face of, "Seriously, do you still not get it?"

While this case is probably the one that will be the best example to document; the discussion is obviously broader, or this wouldn't even see the light of day at ISAF. It's amazing to me that anyone needs a definition of "at the mark."

Just goes to show how some people prefer to twist the rules to gain any advantage (in this case, the earlier they could be considered "at the mark," the sooner they could have sailed a proper course, which I presume they felt was enter wide, exit close).



What's funny about that? As Tom would say, UM8 didn't need to bother showing up when the sportsmanship award was given...

Mike

The definition of at the mark is really important to setting and holding a mark trap in team racing. We have used event calls to better define this at a couple events I umpired over the summer.

Please don't misunderstand me, in the series of posts here, I'm not saying that it's not important (quite the contrary), just that it's so obvious that it blows my mind that people need PCs, Appeals and ISAF to define it for them.

Mike

pbbbbbbshh. reading. That's silly stuff for non-sailors... Ramming Speed!

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/in...;pid=3517851&st=50&#entry3517851

Stolen from SA:

"!8.2 c 2 looks to be in direct contradiction of the new mark-room wording though

I'm inside windward boat and I can be pushed to sail the corridor.
But if I sail wide come in on port late i can shut the door happy as larry on an inside starboard boat, so long as I'm sailing a proper course when the inevitable smash-up occurs ... oh but don't be that boat going wide and get tagged on the stern by the starboard boat, because then you are screwed.

Technically smart butt. About as clear on the water for the everyday racers as mud."

I'm lost.

I'm not sure what that post is referring to. At a windward mark you still need an overlap, which by definition doesn't apply between boats on opposite tacks when sailing closer than 90 degrees to the wind.

I would wait until any changes are approved and published before worrying about them.

Pete,

Like Jeff said, don't worry about this yet. If for no other reason than these changes are still over a year away from taking effect.

Also, take everything that you read on SA with a grain of salt. To say that people rarely agree about anything over there would be the understatement of the year. At least here, people (mostly) agree on rules interpretations; and if not, someone usually comes in with a good official reference. And people here are much nicer to one another when discussing rules debates (and just about everything else)...

Mike

My biggest question was what is meant by the expression, "sail the corridor". I'd never heard it before.

Is this so? I thought that ISAF changes rules in the year when Olympic Games are taking place = 2012.