Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing
RRS G1.2 (a) (3) Contrasting Colour
Ewan McEwan
Nationality: United Kingdom
Certifications:
- Regional Race Officer
- International Judge
- International Umpire
1
Festive greetings! 🌲
May I ask for some opinions on the interpretation of ‘contrasting colour?
How about some colour combinations;
- Black on White, and visa versa, is common and seems obvious
- Red on White is common in the ILCA classes (class rules require the first two digits to be a different colour to the rest)
- Blue on White, similar
Please add other combinations you have come across and your opinion as to whether they meet the ‘contrasting colour’ requirement.
I recently came across Black on Grey. At first sight I felt that this combination doesn’t meet the rule requirement. Though I thought it useful to check with colleagues.
Look forward to hearing your views!
Comments
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Maximum contrast occurs when 2 colors are on the opposite sides on the color wheel .. so as colors are closer to each other, they are of less contrast.
Now .. it's not that simple .. because for any color you also have saturation and brightness.
Based on above ..
Here is a color wheel I found which shows the decreasing saturation toward the center.
The White on Grey/Black can work well, but it is the placement of numbers and letters that can be an issue
Blue on black - no
Gray on black - no
White on black - yes
I have seen many in the above and in evening and night events the top three above are almost impossible to see. During the day they are hard to make out
It causes two issues
1. The signal boat/rc have a hard time identifying boats that are OCS, and identifying boats at their finish
2. It makes it difficult for other competitors to identify boats on the water at any distance.
Does anyone have any suggested NORs or SIs that address this? It might serve as a warning that AG 1.2 would be enforced. (The real problem is with the sailmakers that put the red on black or other numbers that don’t conform to the rule)
The could be made [DP] but a warning does nothing to fix the problem and most owners won’t fix it
I could see it being a rule 2 issue if a boat or RC believe and convince PC it was done on purpose to hinder identification of the boat. This might be a big hill to climb
Black on grey really doesn't meet the rule; and I'd go with the rest of Paul's list as well. And if you've ever sat on the finish line of long distance races that finish after dusk, you'll see exactly why. Even in good daylight non-contrasting colours are difficult to read if not at or near right angles to the line of sight.
Owners will fix it once they find that they haven't been classified because they can't be identified. A strategy that has been used in a certain club that organises a large number of cross-channel races each year.
If it is made a DP and the penalty is, say, two places, owners will soon get the message when it puts an end to their season's championship placing.
It's sort of a shame that the class Rule protest procedure isn't (or is it?) available for this issue since it would seem appropriate. Actually after looking at the appendix it seems to me the class rule procedure would be potentially available for all but international classes.
Thinks, if an RC has been unable to identify an OCS boat due to indistinct numbers would they be justified in protesting every boat in the fleet that has indistinct numbers? Might concentrate minds.
Again .. going for something quantitative .. you could certainly prescribe (or measure) a min difference in "luminance" in the HLS "color space" ... which is Hue, Luminance and Saturation.
Put both colors in any paint program and use the "eye dropper" tool to compare the "luminance" values. It would be a simple thing to set a minimum delta in luminance between the sail-color and the Letter/Number-color and take the guess work out of it.
Another one, seen only once, was white on black, but the numbers were stuck opposite each other on the sail so when backlit it read "88888"
The Sailmakers are not the problem, the owners and their representatives are. I've talked to multiple sailmakers about this, they have no problem doing what they are told by the Rule Makers, but they don't want to be the one to give the owner and their representative the "bad news." From personal experience I believe obscuring sail numbers is done intentionally aboard some boats. As a retired PRO, it is a serious problem in some fleets. (Interestingly the technology that Vakaros and Velocitec are about to announce will eliminate any need for numbers on sails for the PRO, but that won't happen for a few years.)
Just as sailmakers must sign off on a certificate guaranteeing the sail's measurements, I'm sure they'd be thrilled to have the Class Rules and the Handicap Rules give them guidance so they can show it to the owners and their representatives and end this nonsense.
I have had a lot of problems with this over the years.
In Club racing I take a picture of the yacht and send it to the owner and ask them if they know which boat it is. Many owners are very surprised at how hard their sail numbers are to read. Most change their numbers. Those who don't are scored DNC next time.
In open meetings/nationals I always publish a document called Race Management Guidelines laying out how I am going to run the event. I put in it that boat's whose sail number can not be read will be scored DNC and that boats will need to apply for redress if they were racing. I will have a video (on an iPad) of the finish and my tape will have "miss" on it as a boat with unreadable numbers crosses the line. However there is usually more than one so they have to prove which was them.
Rarely have a problem on the second day.
https://www.nyu.edu/life/information-technology/web-and-digital-publishing/digital-publishing/accessibility/accessibility-checklist/sufficient-contrast.html#:~:text=Color%20Contrast%20Checkers,the%20contrast%20ratio%20between%20them.
> them guidance
But surely they have exactly that. I suppose there may be some, but I've never come across a set of class rules that don't either specifically say contrasting or else invoke the RRS rule and appendix. World Sailing certification documents specifically mention the requirement for legibility. No-one should be in the slightest doubt that low legibility sails are illegal and surely measurers should not be passing such.
But that does bring us full circle to Ewan's original question on what is acceptable, and it's not one that has an easy answer. We can talk about colour wheels and digital contrast, but I don't know that it helps much when you consider all the issues mentioned above. Perhaps measurers should ask themselves whether there's another readily available colour that would obviously be more legible, and if so refuse to pass the sail? Ultimately it's surely got to be down to measurement.
Lots of great points by so many very experienced people - thank you.
Would be great if we could draft a proposal to submit in order the change the rule to improve the situation. Remember we need to be a ‘broad church’ as there are so many different forms of the sport to be included!
If any one wants to suggest a prospective text please do - thank you.
RRS Appendix G - 1.2(a) requires, amongst other things, the national letters and sail numbers to be "clearly legible". Determination of this requirement will be relative and is not strictly a matter of measurement but at least it should be taken to mean legible to the RC and Jury under adverse situations. It also specifies that acceptable typefaces are those giving the same or better legibility than Helvetica (Figure G.2.6.1)
Is there any doubt such sails are already illegal and should not have passed measurement? In which case it's an enforcement problem more than a rule problem.
It would be interesting to have input from sailmakers who have delivered such sails and measurers who have passed them.
Beau's article is very helpful. There is a quantitative test which will result in a contrast ratio #. Maybe state a minimum "contrast ratio".
PS ... this article is even more descriptive and include the tool. It also discusses "alpha" which is the transparency of a color when layered over another (very familiar to all us Photoshop users as the "alpha channel"). At least having the discussion of alpha gets us closer to the effects of transparent sails.
To REALLY do this right .. we should have contrast ratio added to the ERS .. as the ERS already uses "contrasting" (undefined) in "ERS C.4.7 Limit Mark". In doing so, the ERS could specify the method of contrast ratio measurement (shown below as "some-defined-method-TBD") .. either in the def or as a separate entry in ERS Section H.
So .. add to ERS Section C.4 a new definition: "Contrast Ratio"
The numeric-value of the difference in perceived "luminance" (or "brightness") between two colours as measured by some-defined-method-TBD.
.. and then use it in a new G1.2 ...
G1.2. Specifications (with ERS term bolded, and additions in [ ]'s)
beof a contrasting colour[have a minimum contrast ratio of ####] to the body of the sail, andIn addition, the letters and numbers identifying the boat shall be clearly legible when the sail is set.
here is a (publicly available) image showing the issue of white on charcoal and how it sometimes shows and other times doesn't:
Even times that the reverse-side numbers can be viewed more clearly than the front-side numbers:
It it were "XXX" .. would we call that a "sporty" boat? ;-) <gd&r>
2. A qualitative test is nice, but because of the issue's complexity (as demonstrated in this discussion), it will constantly be confronted with unexpected objections. These are then settled through case law and, over time, eventually come to a workable solution. Looking at some photos above, I wonder whether a “reasonable person” test will settle this more effectively as the evidence is black and white (no pun intended).
https://assets.rya.org.uk/assetbank-rya-assets/action/directLinkImage?assetId=29070
It occurs to me that something on those lines in SIs could be appropriate, it's a sort of mash up of the RYA process and bits of RRS60.
Y. Sail Number Advisory Meeting
In the event of the RC having difficulty in reading a sail number or numbers it may request an advisory meeting and notify any boat they consider to have indistinct numbers together with photographic evidence.
An adviser will then call a meeting to evaluate the insignia and will state
whether any of the relevant rules appear to have been broken, and by which boat.
Affected boats should not race again until any such deviations have been corrected unless there is, or has been, no reasonable opportunity to do so.
Niko’s post exactly captures my point about the Class I sail.
René say’s ‘It would be hard to argue that some of these sail numbers satisfy G1.4.’. But I think that needs modifying ‘It would be hard to argue that at times some of these sail numbers satisfy G1.4. And equally hard to argue, at times, that they fail to satisfy G1.4’
The simple solution to this would be to add ‘for the purposes of this rule white is not a colour’.
How I see it ... the issue is not with the competitors. They order sails from sailmakers. Sailmakers make sails to either an OD specification/rules or some other limits based on the class.
So .. to me ... it comes down to:
With all the above, adding a measurable specification on the sail numbers is not a heavy lift or burden on sailmakers as long as we are specific on what is required.
I've seen this first hand in my function as a Fleet/Class Measurer. Sailmakers try their best to build sails to spec. When their processes result in a sail out-of-spec, they remedy it and then that information is fed back into the build-process.
If we give sailmakers a measurable standard, they will quickly learn what materials and hues are acceptable over different substrates/colors of sail materials. Once that is learned ... that will then be incorporated into the "build profile" for that style of sail.
PS: Matt ... for translucent sails .. it seems to me the solution is that the numbers must be highly opaque. Opacity to light transmission, again, is something that can me measured and specified.
On prevention, owners shouldn't ask for such sails, sailmakers shouldn't deliver them and measurers shouldn't pass them. But would an enormously complicated set of rules or guidelines about opacity, hues and colour balance really help much? As a former drafter of class rules it sounds like a major challenge, and in my classes we were always trying to take complexity out of our rules. Or could it go another way and simply require sail numbers to be as strongly contrasting as possible? That should deal with the most obvious abuses I've seen like pale blue on black or yellow on white. It's interesting on the above photos and others of that class that the red class logo seems readily visible on all the questionable sails.
There is no need of variation since all the other measures for that sail are being held constant.
Rule Britannia!
- an improper action of the RC; failure to read an illegible sail number is not an improper action, although there may be a case that the RC should take other steps to identify a mysterious finisher;
- through no fault of her own. The rule requires the letters and numbers identifying the boat shall be clearly legible when the sail is set. If the RC cannot read the sail numbers and letters then they are not clearly legible. The 'no fault of her own' condition is not met, so no redress.
This issue is particularly acute in radio sailing. Some fonts or colours are far more difficult to read at long distance.
However, the SB20 CR's actually do just that already .. they change Appx G as you will see below (Rut-Ro Raggie).
Here are the SB20 CR's I'm referring to ...
So .. if their CR C.10.3(b) is OK .. then I think my mod to their CR C.10.3(a) should be just fine too.
Also, does requiring "white" remove the need for contrasting colors? Seems like that might give free pass to some arse who decided to do white on clear or white on white. Just tell the sail-makers that they need a color that has a high contrast with their sail cloth, and it needs to be so in many lights. This might mean multiple layers or a border. The only thing that matters is that it's equal and legible.
I’ll repeat - on some black laminates in some lights white is unreadable. There are images above which show this.
Personally I would like measurers to treat white as if it isn’t a colour and doesn’t satisfy the rule!
Rule 86.1(c), Class rules may change only racing rules 42, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 and 78.2.
Yea ... I don't know about that one. Hit me as off too. They have a "building specification" that covers the vessel and sails .. so spec'ing a letter/number material/color probably should be in there anyway .. since that is where the sail material will be spec'd and they could track/match different requirements in a table as sail materials change.
I don't think that approach covers C.10.3(b) though.
PS: I thought maybe there might be a clause in 86.2 to allow WS to provide a WS-Class an allowance, but I can't find it except on a "specific international event" basis. We do that generally with a Rule 87 letter in the J105 Class for local changes in CR's, but 86.2 is worded differently than 87 and not structured such that a "general allowance" is possible I think.
The (lack of) sail number is another matter of course.
The various photos of the Viper class above and on the net suggest to me that it's probably futile to try and produce a table of acceptable colour combinations, especially if such a table is in class rules and needs to be voted on and go through rule change procedure every time a new material appears.
The embedded nature of the problem is nicely highlighted by the North sails advertisement for the Viper Class showing the pale blue numbers that are notably indistinct in many photos. It would seem they are marketing illegal sails, but presumably noone has failed them on measurement.
In those cases, I can't emphasize enough how trivial it would be for the Class to figure it out and make it uniform .. and in the case that they change the spec's for the single-design sail over time, keeping a table of the previously approved specs (if the older sails are allowed to be used in OD racing going forward). In the context of making a decision on the new sail material and the testing and evaluation all that involves .. it's really nothing.
PS: re "illegal sails" .. I think it's a good habit to form to not use "illegal" when talking about breaches of the rules .. be it boats/items that are out of class-spec or a boat's maneuvers on the water. 'Rule-breaking' or "non-compliant" might be better. It's been my experience that the sailmakers simply ask you what color do you want your numbers to be, even when I've has string-sails on mylar.
To the extent that picture you refer to is a bunch of Vipers with differing colors, that more likely reflects a series of induvial personal decisions on the part of the boats' owners.
'In addition, the letters and numbers identifying the boat shell be clearly legible when the sail is set.'
So, whatever the colour, if RC cannot read the sail number they are not clearly legible.
Equipment inspectors, race committees and judges (if on the water) can take action under RRS77. Rather than go straight to protest, I would suggest that the relevant race official raise the issue with the boat owner or his representative. I would also suggest that is what practice days are for.
Experience from radio sailing this has to be evaluated on the water, only in extreme cases will a measurer intervene during measurement on shore.
The issue of legibility with sun behind the sail is a big one, as it may not be apparent on a practice day if the lighting conditions are not right. This is apparent from a comment earlier in this thread declaring one color to be the most legible followed immediately by a picture where that color was almost invisible. This cannot be assessed by the measurer on land, nor by the purchaser from their own boat (nor on land). Sail makers must step up here to keep their clients from being tossed from regattas.