John .. a list of the deleted/expired appeals is in the first section of the Appeals Book.

I offer a change to the definition of Finish for consideration:

 

Finish    A boat finishes when, after starting, any part of her hull crosses the finishing line from the course side. However, she has not finished if after crossing the finishing line she

(a) takes a penalty under rule 44.2,

(b) corrects an error in sailing the course made at the line, or

(c) continues to sail the course.

 

Suggested change:

 

Finish    A boat finishes when, after starting, any part of her hull crosses the finishing line, on the last leg of the course or shortened course, from the course side. However, she has not finished if after crossing the finishing line she

(a) takes a penalty under rule 44.2,

(b) corrects an error in sailing the course made at the line

Thanks John,

I agree that race officers didn’t need all the convincing in my last post.  I was trying to support my position that even small venue race committees should and can follow best practices.  

I reread the conversation between you and John Mooney.  I appreciate the cautious approach discussed in scoring a boat NSC.  Before NSC, race committees would need to protest a boat that did not sail the course.  The PRO would be prepared with evidence to present to the jury.  I think the same applies to NSC, if you score a boat NSC, be prepared to defend the score with evidence at a redress hearing.  And John Mooney made a great point that a missing mark rounding alone is not enough.  It is enough, as he stated, to warrant further investigation.

I expect that in the not too distant future boats will race with a GPS device attached to their bows.  This device will send data to a cloud based program that will make OCS calls, determine if a boat sailed the course, and when it finished or didn’t.  As economies of scale takes hold, even smaller venues will be able to employ this technology.  Of course this will bring new issues.  For example, what happens when a device fails while racing?

Jerry

Well done ! 

Thanks John A for bringing us back to the intent of the thread.

Richard … yes .. “physical” contact … but I have to say that would have been a fun twist if my intent was to make this a “puzzler” (I’m kind’a jealous I didn’t think of it!).

In both scenarios I’d hoped to remove the question of OTW penalties by taking them post valid-protest-hearing to the PC’s decision as at that point we can tally if a penalty resulted based on the contact.  Also bringing the question through the hearing should have removed things like “girlfriend” considerations.

As John points out, we need to count on PCs to be deaf to such considerations.

So, as I put the question, ‘When does and does-not a PC make an error by NOT penalizing at least 1 boat?’  Not, ‘When does a boat make an error by not taking an OTW penalty or deciding to protest or not?’  

With Scenario #1, I’d hoped to conjure some analysis as John just provided … also Rick’s 2-boats drifting without way and a nod to the RRS 36 possibility.   Also Case 77’s ROW boat’s equipment moving unexpectedly out of position is a good catch. 

Are there any more I missed here?

With Scenario #2, I had worded it to be open to more possibilities .. with other boats possibly causing the contact between A and B (imagining a crowded pinwheel around a leeward mark).  Here maybe a 3rd boat protests A&B but the PC finds that it’s a 4th boat at fault, but is either unidentifiable or since Boat-4 was not protested, the PC decides not to protest Boat-4 (thus no boat DSQ’d is not an “error” as a PC “may” protest Boat-4). 

In the end, I think it’s a reasonable QC check on the part of the PC when there is contact to make sure they are not inappropriately exonerating a rule breach when confronted with physical contact between boats.