Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing
Windsurfing's Rule 17: An Unintended Penalty?
Bryan McDonald
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
- National Judge
- National Umpire
0
In Appendix B, Rule 17 is changed to:
...a board overlapped to leeward of another board on the same tack during the last 30 seconds before her starting signal shall not sail above the shortest course to the first mark...
If yellow is sailing above the shortest course to the first mark on her approach to start (without changing course), and blue, traveling faster, breaks rule 11, is a protest committee compelled to disqualify yellow for a breach of Appendix B's rule 17? If a PC is compelled to penalize yellow, this appears to be almost a 'checkmate' position for yellow (who would not normally be keeping a lookout clear astern), and the time between not breaking rule 17 to breaking it (specifically, the time from when blue is clear astern to overlapped) can be less than one second, in normal slalom racing conditions (where the breeze and board speeds can be in excess of 20 knots), thus yellow has virtually no time or notice to comply with this rule). When boards are early to a start, natural stalling actions are to luff or bear away. Rule 17 appears to take away the luff option. Is there a safety origin to this rule?
Comments
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It does not seem that this is that different from how rules 11 and 17 interact in "regular" boat fleet and team racing. The windward boat/board is required to keep clear, regardless of whether the leeward boat/board is sailing above her "proper course". If she doesn't, she is penalized. If the leeward boat/board has a requirement not to sail above her proper course, which for a board is the heading for the shortest course to the first mark for the 30 seconds before the start, and she is sailing above that she has broken the rule and gets penalized. It is possible for both boats to break rules in the same incident, it isn't always one or the other.
What I find interesting is that the limitation only applies for the 30 seconds before the start; before that and after the start there are no limitations on the leeward board's course.
As a judge and umpire, for me the immediacy of being no higher than the limiting course has a very short transition period. Once the limitation becomes effective, i.e. the overlap is established, I would look for the boat/board to immediately comply as fast as she safely can. This is similar to a boat sailing above her proper course just prior to establishing a leeward overlap and then immediately turning down to her proper course. We don't penalize the boat for sailing higher than her proper course for the few instants after the overlap is established. She gets the time to turn down quickly but any delay or slowness is frowned upon.
I get that boards have the problem of knowing that someone is approaching from behind them, but that is also true for boats who get overlapped/hooked to leeward in the last few seconds before the start and suddenly have to come up. Just because you are looking forward doesn't mean that you can ignore everything else going on around you.
Note this is when the start is a 90 deg reach. I would think this is to prevent a leeward stb boat from sweeping the line to windward