Simon, I think I'm going to play devil's advocate for the sake of discussion and take the position that what the RC did is not a basis for redress as long as the sight-line was done the same for all competitors.

I'm going to make a geometric argument.

Let's assume that it's a decent sized sailboat for the RC in this case and the distance from the mast to the shroud or line is 4'.

If the RC is square to the line, it doesn't matter as both the shroud and the mast would be lined up with the line.
The only issue would come when the RC is skewed to the line. Let's give the RC a 10 deg skew and say the line is 200' long.
4' sin 10deg = 8 inch variance between the mast and the shroud at the side of the RC (where the differential is at its greatest) and that tapers to 0' at the pin forming a triangular shape and thus a 4" difference in the middle of the line.

I just tried now to draw it (so that I could post a pic showing how close those lines are), but the lines are so close that they overlap each other at computer screen resolution and it looks like just a thicker line. To put into perspective, if you drew a 7" line as the base of the triangle on a piece of paper in front of you, the height of the triangle on the RC end would only be .023".

     7"           X
---------- = ---------- ---> X = 56/2400 = .023”
 (200'x12)        8"

or 0.53mm

In that case, a competitor saying on the water trying to judge their position can claim that they were less than 4" over the line is a pretty wild one.

Ang

PS .. if your computer screen is a modern 1680 pixels wide .. and you drew a 1 pixel width line completely across your screen, the triangle would be only 3.5 pixels high on the one side.

How was the start line described in the SIs?

The drawing suggests the SI defined one end as "a mast or staff displaying an orange flag."
As "mast" and "staff" are not defined in RRS, we are obligated to turn to the dictionary.
Mine defines "staff" as "a pole on which a flag is displayed."
A spreader is just as much a pole as a mast is. And this spreader has a flag on it.
Redress must be granted.

The rules have always referred to staff, and race officers used this wording and have considered the staff the halyard to the flag.
Lots of committee boats only have halyards, and use the word staff.

As a race officer myself, I see no problem here. In normal usage, staff means the halyard with the flag on it.

Mike B

IMHO, there's a slight ambiguity which I believe should be "judged" towards the benefit of the sailor. Jury should get testimony from the RO as to what he/she used to sight the line and if it was not the most "forward" of the items then there may be grounds for redress.

Would the use of the word "hoist of the orange flag" suffice in any case to indicated the halyard or staff position?

As originally posted, this is a RC best practices issue, not a ruling issue.
Even a halyard has two parts (up and down) and the part holding the luff of the flag may be in motion.
The line caller needs a stable point of reference, as do the competitors.
Best practice is to fly the flag directly on the mast or (removable) vertical staff.

The drawing does not show a "mast or staff displaying an orange flag". A signal halyard below a spreader ( what seems to be in the illustration) is not a staff or mast.

However, the boat requesting redress clearly saw something displaying an orange flag (otherwise what would be the basis of their illustration?) and chose to be OCS in relation to this display. Assuming testimony indicates the line sighter was in proper position to sight the line with this display ( and followed other requirements for a quality line sighting), I would find that the boat did not meet the criteria of "through no fault of her own" RRS 62.1 and would therefore not grant redress.

A quiet word with the RO would, I hope, lead to an amendment to the SIs for future use, or bringing the practice into line with the current SIs and having the flag attached to the mast (on the halyard held tight to the mast works for me).

In a practical sense, many clubs use halyards to cross tees on a mast either ashore or on a committee boat so that multiple flags can be set up at one time and then raised at the appropriate time. It would be best if the SI's matched the reality. Having said that, Paul's analysis suggests that there is no real practical difference about where the line is located and virually no difference in the sighting line compared to a line from the halyard displaying the flag. In any local club race I doubt anyone would take the point. In a serious professional regatta it seems to me there was no start line as defined in the SI's and and therefore no race as no competitor could claim to have started as there was no start line as defined. (ie the latter is my interpretation of the technical requirements of the rules. I imagine many potest or race committees would broadly imterptet mast or staff to include common fittings to such an item including the cross tees. Also in a practical sense I doubt many starting officials would call a boat OCS for the few inches involved in Paul's analysis, particularly if communication was very difficult eg in a fleet of 20 dnighies without radios along a line.in a strong breeze.

Oh, no, no, no, Greg! You cannot have it both ways.
We just had a long discussion about a competitor's obligation in fairness to retire after realizing an earlier foul.
Now you want to hide the RO's error and penalize the victim of the error?

I think that this description is perfectly clear. The line will be sighted from the mast or staff that has the flag attached. If RC sights the line from the halyard or line from the spreader that would be an error. The reason why you have a flag attached to figure out which of the many staffs or masts (boats can have more than one).

Break down the english.

The line is from a mast or a staff.
Which mast or staff?
The one with the orange flag.

If it was unclear which mast or staff had the flag then there could be a legitimate problem. If the RC is not sighting from the mast or staff then we have a problem. Otherwise no problem and no sympathy for the person that is confused or attempts to use some twist of words to avoid their mistake.

My dictionary says this is a staff. And it is the one with a flag attached.
If the SI or the competitor's meeting said "the mast that has the flag attached" (as it should have) I could agree with Brent.
Many things seem clear to us due to our past experiences or tradition - until someone without that same indoctrination exposes other interpretations.
As it was unclear to Cassandra, it was unclear. And through no fault of her own.
We now go so far as to specify the "course side" of a buoy to describe a start or finish line.
Now perhaps we see that we cannot tolerate sloppiness at the signal end of the line.
Mount the flag precisely on the sight line.

Sorry ladies and gentlemen, I don't see the confusion. If I took a hacksaw and cut that mast down, would the flag remain? That mast is clearly "displaying an orange flag" just like this flagpole is displaying three flags.

Phillip nothing in my post is an attempt to hide the RO error. However, the post raises the degree to which the boat requesting redress may have been culpable. RRS 62 requires that, in order for a boat to get redress, the boat cannot contribute to the error in any way.

What exactly is the RO Error? I feel like I'm missing something. Also, the actual text from the SI's describing the line would be really useful.
Thanks!

There is far from consensus on the RO error. I contend that there is an error, if the initial illustration is correct and the included words are from the SIs. To my mind, the illustration shows and orange flag flying from a signal halyard, not an orange flag flying from a mast or staff as the wording requires. As such, the signal boat end of the line is not in compliance with the SIs.

Unfortunately the discussion appears to be bogging down. It looks like one where the PC should make a ruling, and then request review by the Appeals process.

The problem on the water is that the RO focuses on the edge of the mast, as he should, and as the SI defines.
At the same time, the competitors, our customers, sight on the flag itself, which often is the only thing they can see - and then only fleetingly.
The same is true for me as line caller at the pin end of a 200m line of Optis.
Standing on the deck of a whaler (even higher than the competitors' stance) I can see the flag only in glimpses.
This is really a RO discussion, not a Judge discussion. I hope RO instructors take note.
Best practices? This is good - but would be better if the orange tag continued down at least to sailboat deck level:

From the PC perspective, I would like to hear from Cassandra where she considered the RCs end was? The “As a result she started in a position she thought reasonable having regard to other boats in the same race / start..” suggests that she made a gallant and arbitrary decision about the placement of the RC end.

Little thin to support her request.

Kim