Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing
Shortened Course and Time Limits
Philip Hubbell
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
- Club Race Officer
- Judge In Training
0
Shortened Course and Time Limits
Two late night musings:
.
If the course is shortened for the purpose of allowing the lead boat
to finish before the deadline, this eliminates the deadline for that boat.
Is it fair to keep the second time limit (window) for the remaining boats,
or should that, too, be eliminated via the SIs?
.
Should a finish time window be based on elapsed time (for RC convenience)
or on corrected time?
Imagine a scenario in which a very slow boat might have corrected
to first place had the finish window not expired.
Two late night musings:
.
If the course is shortened for the purpose of allowing the lead boat
to finish before the deadline, this eliminates the deadline for that boat.
Is it fair to keep the second time limit (window) for the remaining boats,
or should that, too, be eliminated via the SIs?
.
Should a finish time window be based on elapsed time (for RC convenience)
or on corrected time?
Imagine a scenario in which a very slow boat might have corrected
to first place had the finish window not expired.
Comments
[You must be signed in to add a comment]
Some comments in how my club runs an evening series.
Divide fleet into three flights by handicap
Score on average lap times.
Try and juggle start times and course shortening so all fleets take a turn in being last to finish.
Short laps and plenty of them.
No timeout. It's the RC responsibility to set and shorten course so all boats finish within a reasonable window, pack up in the last of the daylight and are in time for dinner in the clubhouse.
In cases 1&2 it just needs to be a set time (more on that in a minute). In case 3, are you sure the wind speed isn't increasing allowing the slow hull to gain an advantage? But equally, as you say the slow hull must not be unfairly disadvantaged.
If we assume this is lap racing and that the fast hull is doing 10 minute laps and the time limit is 40 minutes, S is displayed for his 4th lap. If the slower boat is 60% slower (common for oppi with lasers for instance), if S is t displayed till fast finishes 4th lap then Slow is already half way round the 3rd lap. And will probably finish within any likely time limit
But if the same time limits apply and fast is doing 20 minute laps he is shortened at 2 laps. But slow is off doing his 2nd lap having taken 32 minutes for the first lap. Poor kid will take 64 minutes of racing (and we wonder why kids sometimes won't race with adults!) And I've see. 20 minute finishing windows. But there is NOTHING slow could have done to get a finish.
The sensible thing to do was finish slow at 1 lap, but that requires comfort in finishing back markers before the "lead". What if the wind dies...
There can be 2 time limits applicable to a race:
These need to be published in the NOR/SI.
The race committee should also have a Target Race Time, or Expected Race Duration (for fixed courses). These might not be published in the NOR/SI.
The purpose of these time limits is to set some time boundaries on which everyone, competitors, regatta organisers, and the race committee can plan and rely.
It's the job of th RO to set or shorten courses so that "most" boats finish within their time limits.
Philip Hubbell
Why should it not be?
The Finishing Window represents a proportion of the overall race duration that all well sailed competitive boats are expected to finish within.
Boats that are poorly sailed or have suffered a misadventure in the race may miss out. That's a rub of the green issue.
Time limits are difficult to calculate for fleets with very wide disparities in speed, particularly where there are just one or two boats that are much slower than the rest.
On one hand you don't want a well sailed slow boat that is winning on handicap timing out and getting a DNF/TLE.
On the other hand you don't want the RO to set a pathetically short course for the bulk of the fleet, or, with multiple races, have fast boats hanging around for their next start longer than they spend racing in a race.
You could theoretically specify a floating Finishing Window, based on the corrected time needed by the slowest boat to achieve a podium place. That requires the race management team to maintain and monitor a running spreadsheet with corrected times and placings of all boats that have finished, and time to beat for the slow boats.
OK, its the 21st Century, that's not all that difficult to do, but it's a complication that may be beyond most club race management teams.
In a world's race where competitors have to prequalify -- you really are only interested in the front and the rest shouldn't be miles behind unless something breaks.
In a club race, you need to encourage those set out on their race career and not be making their effort worthless.
For a national event are you there for the front of the pack? Or do you need to acknowledge that someone has travelled a significant distance, paid a hefty fee etc and wants a result.
But equally you can't be waiting for the guy with the broken mast to drift over the line...
FLAG "W" exists for good reason on non-handicap fleets.
Yes, courses and event formats should be thoughtfully designed by race committees and intelligently implemented by race officers. They should not include arbitrary or unrealistic time limits.
Surely that should go without saying.
But I can't seem to find flag W in my copy of RRS Race Signals.
This slide deck from Irish Sailing describes it rather well.
The actual flag makes it sound rather more formal than it usually is... It's usually a laminated printed copy stuck on the clipboard used for capturing result that the RIB recording places and telling people to head to the next start. They will blow a whistle to attract attention
11. SCORING
11.3 The Race Committee may score boats lagging behind as finished-in-place.
I could, maybe should, add that it is a modification of a rule, but linguistically A5.1 covers it.
Note that this is text I use for local model boat racing, but I have included the same PRO powers in high school and college racing.
One of the advantages of "W" is the sailor knows they can stop. And sails to the start area for the next race. If the committee boat just grabs their places they don't know and carry on racing and you either don't get them in the next start or have to wait...
Unlike RRS A2.1, RRS A5.2 or A5.3 don't include the 'unless NOR/SI otherwise provide' exception. I think you need the magic words.
And what does 'finished-in-place' mean?
Would that be a very small whaler for RC Sailing? Maybe for model whales?
I don't have the exact SI language handy, but it is essentially what is being discussed here, without the Whiskey flag. In practice, it really only works on a 3-lap W/L course, where you can nip the stragglers off at the second gate rounding. On a 2-lap course, rarely do they get so far behind that you would want to do it at the only gate rounding - and what's the point of doing it at the weather mark, when they must sail back downwind to the start/finish area anyway.
Yet another Aussie colloquialism? :-)
No, it's from golf.
It means an outcome determined by good or bad luck.
Rough with the smooth.
Swings and roundabouts.
A1.1. In addition to RRS 32, when the race committee believe that boats are unlikely to finish within the time limit or boats do not finish with the time limit, the race committee may score boats in the order, corrected on handicap if appropriate, that they passed through the last gate or mark at which the race committee are able to establish a finishing order. Such a line becomes the finishing line for those boats. However, no boat shall be scored better than any boat that completed the course before S over N has been displayed. The race committee may signal this by the display of S over N. This changes RRS 35 & A5.