Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing
Rated Fleets - time penalties (SCP/DPI etc): elapsed vs corrected
Stefan Kunstmann
Certifications:
- International Race Officer
0
Hi,
in a variety of events that I've helped to manage I kept stumbling about discretionary or other penalties expressed in "corrected time". In trying to convince Organisers to change their ways, I'm seeking your input to figure out if my bias is omitting arguments pro corrected time.
In an extreme example, a boat S(low) rated 1.000 and a boat F(ast) rated 2.000 could compete against each other. As most penalties have their foundation in a replacement of action on the water (e.g. a 2-turn penalty), I'm of the opinion that they should be based on elapsed time. Applying a 30 minute penalty on corrected time in my example would be equivalent to 30 minutes racing time on Boat S, but only 15 on Boat F. Doesn't appear to be fair.
Another possibility is that whilst e.g. a Class 40 in an international event may be raced in an OD-Class, it may also dual-score in an IRC or ORC class. Applying a corrected time penalty would mean that the elapsed equivalent would be different in both, as in the OD class the (sort-of, logical) TCF would be 1.000, but different in the IRC/ORC/... class.
A single sort-of-pro would be that choosing a corrected time penalty would be easier were the jury to aim for a particular place the competitor should fall into. However, my argument is that they should then assign a score instead. "Choosing" the end-result is also somewhat discouraged, because it can then not be applied consistently throughout a fleet of boat, and would ergo be biased.
Newer documents such as DR21-01 would also explicitly use elapsed time penalties.
Now over to you: Do you have any argument that would require, or at least make it beneficial, to reach for a penalty on corrected instead of elapsed time, or that could simply not be achieved on elapsed time? I shall be interested to learn your point of view.
Thanks!
in a variety of events that I've helped to manage I kept stumbling about discretionary or other penalties expressed in "corrected time". In trying to convince Organisers to change their ways, I'm seeking your input to figure out if my bias is omitting arguments pro corrected time.
In an extreme example, a boat S(low) rated 1.000 and a boat F(ast) rated 2.000 could compete against each other. As most penalties have their foundation in a replacement of action on the water (e.g. a 2-turn penalty), I'm of the opinion that they should be based on elapsed time. Applying a 30 minute penalty on corrected time in my example would be equivalent to 30 minutes racing time on Boat S, but only 15 on Boat F. Doesn't appear to be fair.
Another possibility is that whilst e.g. a Class 40 in an international event may be raced in an OD-Class, it may also dual-score in an IRC or ORC class. Applying a corrected time penalty would mean that the elapsed equivalent would be different in both, as in the OD class the (sort-of, logical) TCF would be 1.000, but different in the IRC/ORC/... class.
A single sort-of-pro would be that choosing a corrected time penalty would be easier were the jury to aim for a particular place the competitor should fall into. However, my argument is that they should then assign a score instead. "Choosing" the end-result is also somewhat discouraged, because it can then not be applied consistently throughout a fleet of boat, and would ergo be biased.
Newer documents such as DR21-01 would also explicitly use elapsed time penalties.
Now over to you: Do you have any argument that would require, or at least make it beneficial, to reach for a penalty on corrected instead of elapsed time, or that could simply not be achieved on elapsed time? I shall be interested to learn your point of view.
Thanks!
Comments
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https://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/DiscretionayPenaltiesWPIR-[10934].pdf
Some Standard Penalties, for example penalty in lieu of OCS, may be given as correction to elapsed time, because this represents a nominal estimate of the actual, not corrected time advantage being removed.
I agree that giving a penalty as an adjustment to corrected time is effectively giving a penalty of so many places, but is less transparent than expressing the penalty that way.
In Offshore and Ocean Racing, SP and DPI are frequently time-based. You may be right in your comment where Dinghy or One Design fleets are concerned.
I don't necessarily want to debate Judges' concerns, but simply figure out if I may have missed a case that would speak for a time-penalty in corrected rather than elapsed time. I can't see one myself.
Thanks for your input, Jim.
Again, I'm trying to avoid a debate of what penalties should be applied when or how much - simply that if fixed time penalties such as 10, 30, 60 minutes etc were used should they be applied to corrected or elapsed time.
I'm still of the opinion that they should always be applied to elapsed time for the reasons given in my initial post. Thus far I haven't heard any convincing arguments to apply them to corrected time instead. However I'm still interested if I may have missed anything that would support the latter method.
In that case, applying time penalties to elapsed times of boats with widely different handicaps will result in significantly inconsistent outcomes for different boats, as you have described
For that reason I think it would be logical to apply those penalties to corrected times.
For what it's worth, in the Sydney to Hobart race various time penalties are prescribed, all to be applied to elapsed times. See this example
https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/media.prod.cyca/media/3442918/final-rolex-sydney-hobart-yacht-race-2021-sailing-instructions.pdf
I can't see any logic path to determine whether to apply time penalties to elapsed or corrected times if the OA/RC doesn't expressly say which in the NOR/SI.