Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing
Starting and the string rule
Dan Falcon
Nationality: United States
0
Given the following:
- Wind is light.
- Starting line is basically East-West, proper course is basically NNW.
- Current is strong, going from NNE to SSW, pushing boats away from the starting line.
With this situation...
- Boat B crosses the starting line after the gun.
- The wind dies basically as the race starts.
- Boat B drifts back across the starting line and winds up well west of the line before anchoring.
- The wind picks up.
- Boat B sails straight N to the windward mark, which is shorter than returning to the starting line.
So...
- Under the string rule, Boat B has not sailed the course, because Boat B un-crossed the starting line. Under the definition of Sail the Course, a string pulled taut for Boat B would not pass between the two ends of the starting line.
Right?
Comments
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The situation was just an unusual variation on the seasonal pattern. Usually, the wind is light from the east, then, about an hour before start, it dies down then swings to be fresh from north and strengthens from there. Most days, anyway. This day it just happened to die, start to freshen, then die again, then it filled in about an hour later than usual.
So, Kett, it wasn't the best day for the RC, but they weren't nuts. It was reasonable to expect it to improve at pretty much any moment. They did delay the subsequent starts. But with three or so starts already away, some of which made pretty good distance before it died, abandoning would have been tough.
Carrick, we were on the anchor for about 10 minutes, maybe 20 max? Five minutes feels like a day. And then the wind showed up as usual and was fine for the rest of the day.
Thanks again!