Forum: Rule 18 and Room at the Mark
Scenario for the Thanksgiving Weekend
P
Angelo GuarinoCertifications:
- Regional Judge
- Fleet Measurer
1
- Blue approaches the leeward mark outside of one other boat (not shown for clarity) and is therefore forced into a wide rounding.
- After passing the mark, Blue is slow and pinned by the stern of that same boat to windward (not shown).
- Between 5 and 6, Blue is clear to tack and completes her tack at 7.
- There is minor contact between the hulls at 8, no damage.
- Both boats protest.
Comments
[You must be signed in to add a comment]
After position 7, when G changes course, turns on RRS-16.
At position N°8 G breaches rule 16 + 14........ and B breaches 10 +14 but is exonerated for RRS-21
Penalty on G, rrs-16
Blue gave room to the first boat (not shown), then
Blue tacked onto port of an approaching starboard tack boat.
Green tried to avoid
Penalty on blue
At 7 Blue, now close-hauled on port is crossing ahead of Green. Green has no need to take avoiding action
Green then alters course to windward and there is contact between Green and Blue.
Green, right of way boat, changing course, failed to give room to Blue to keep clear as required by rule 16.1.
It was reasonably possible for Green to avoid contact as required by rule 14, but she is exonerated under 14b s there is no damage.
It was not reasonably possible for Blue to avoid contact.e
Decision Green DSQ
So I'm in the camp that Green broke 16.1. Green broke 14 but was ROW so absent damage or injury is exonerated. It wasn't reasonably possible for Blue to avoid contact so Blue didn't break 14.
I'd also say that since Green initially acquired ROW at 6, rule 15 was off before the incident. Otherwise, since Green acquired ROW by Blue's action, Blue was not entitled to room to keep clear under 15.
Here's my take: From position 1, Green owes Blue mark-room because Blue was clear ahead at the zone (RRS 18.2(b)). It seems from the diagram that if Green had sailed straight she would not have hit Blue, so her change of course between positions 7 and 8 breaks rule 16.1. I think at this point the boats are on opposite tacks on a beat to windward because their proper course is close hauled (see Case 132), so rule 18 does not apply (RRS 18.1(a)). So Green is not exonerated for breaking rule 16.1 and should be penalized.
Note that if the diagram were changed slightly so that at positions 7-8 Green was still prevented by the mark from luffing to a close-hauled course, my answer would be completely different. In that case, the boats are not on a beat to windward. After position 7, Blue is no longer entitled to room under rule 18.2(b) (see RRS 18.2(c)(2)) so rule 18.2(a) applies and Green, the inside boat, is entitled to mark-room. When she changes course she is sailing within the mark-room to which she is entitled and her breach of rule 16.1 is exonerated (RRS 21). Penalize Blue under rule 10.
Tim, regarding Blue “leaving the mark”, that’s an interesting question if she is or not. If Blue could have held course at 7 and was still close-hauled at 8, Blue would have been closer to the mark at 8 than she was at 7. Therefore one could argue that at 7 Blue was approaching mark as she was closing the distance to the mark.
Though this scenario might seem obviously a 16.1 issue to you on the forum, if you put this in front of many racers, they will say that Green had the right to round and come up to her close-hauled course.
I see what you're saying, but I don't think the fact that Blue is getting closer to the mark after rounding meets the definition of "approaching" for the purposes of rule 18.
To my mind once the mark has been rounded, right to mark room has ended and the mark is no longer influencing a boat's choice of course (because her proper course is now to sail to the next mark), that boat is leaving the mark.
Case 132 establishes, as the test of whether or not boats are on beat to windward (in regards to Rule 18), that
.. and it is NOT that the boats are actually close-hauled or above.
So, when you make your point about Green still being limited by the mark from luffing up to close-hauled, you are making the distinction, in that case, Green’s proper course at that moment as being defined by ‘rounding’ and ‘sailing close to the mark’, and not being ‘close-hauled’.
Therefore, the moment Green’s proper course transitions from rounding close to the mark to as being close-hauled, Green is on a beat to windward, even before reaches close-hauled, and therefore 18 turns off at that moment (since Blue satisfies it as well ).
It doesn’t say, “between a boat approaching a mark [to rounding it] and one leaving it [after rounding it].”
I agree your interpretation is how we generally understand it, but that’s not what the text says.
Approach: come near or nearer to (someone or something) in distance or time.
PS: By the interpretation above, Green is leaving and Blue is approaching at #7
If I go by your definition boats are almost always approaching some mark or another. 18 only really makes sense if it's applied when boats are rounding a mark.
Right. Both of those conditions apply here as well as the mark bounding the leg.
Frankly, I hadn’t noticed or thought about this before your comment .. but the phrasing of 18 is the phrasing of 18.
I think racers know a lot of things about the rules that just ain't so... 😉
What rules would be cited to support Green's right to come up to close-hauled? Does she assert mark room after Blue's tack?
We can forget anything to do with the mark at this point.
RRS 18.“MARK-ROOM
18.1 When Rule 18 Applies
Rule 18 applies between boats when they are required to leave a mark on the same side and at least one of them is in the zone. However, it does not apply
(a) between boats on opposite tacks on a beat to windward.
According to the diagram if Green holds her course she will pass astern of Blue. Blue is keeping clear.
However when Green changes course she is obliged under 16.1 to give Blue room to keep clear. Green neglected to give this room and there was contact. Blue would have not had any reasonable opportunity to avoid contact and therefore did not break RRS 14.
Green on the other hand had ample opportunity to avoid a collision but neglected to do so therefore breaking RRS 14 but because there was no injury or serious damage she is exhonourated.
However she broke 16.1 and is DSQ.
Yes. Green is owned mark-room by Blue immediately after Blue passes HTW. At that moment Blue’s 18.2(b) mark-room is turned off by 18.2(d), but 18.2(a) conditions are satisfied.
From just after 6, until just before 7, Green is inside and overlapped with Blue and Blue therefore owes Green 18.2(a) mark-room. That mark-room includes “ room to round the mark as necessary to sail the course.“, therefore that would be room to round and come to a close-hauled course... as long as 18 still applies.
This is where Rob’s argument using Case 132 comes in.
At #7 (as drawn), Green’s stern has passed the mark and though she has not yet reached a close-hauled-course, her proper course is to be close-hauled or above and since Blue’s is also, they are on opposite tacks on a beat to windward, thus turning off 18.
The opposing argument would be that Green’s Mark-room doesn’t turn off until she reaches close-hauled, meaning she is sailing within room she is owed up until she is on a collision course with Blue at position #7.5. Then Green takes avoiding action by luffing above close-hauled and is exonerated for breaking 16.1.
After Blue passes HTW both boats are on opposite tacks RRS 18.2(a) only applies to boats on the same tack and overlapped.
I often note that difficulties with understanding the rules are caused by:
- not applying the definitions
- not reading to the end of the sentence when reading a rule
- not setting out the facts in the terms used by the rules.
For instance, in this case it is clear that rule 18 no longer applies as Blue has rounded the mark as necessary to sail the course and has been given the mark room to which she was entitled.
Gordon
Paddy, I think you’ve got it. Def: Overlap applies just after #6 because 18 applies.
You do expose one issue here and that’s the bit of Catch-22 circular logic in this scenario ...
Gordon, that’s not the tricky part ... I think it’s realizing that Green is owed 18.2(a) MR after #6 and that the entirety of 18 turns off at #7 due to Case 132, and not at #7.5 as it would normally have been determined without that case.
I'd also like to comment on the boat approaching and boat leaving the mark. First, it's clear this condition refers to the same mark for both boats, so the fact that boats are almost always approaching marks is not relevant -- one boat has to be approaching a particular mark and the other has to be leaving that same mark. The second point is that "approaching" and "leaving" are not exact opposites. A boat is only approaching a mark when she has not yet got there, whereas a boat can be leaving that mark at any point that her rounding or passing is nearly complete -- consider the expressions "I'm approaching the store," which surely requires me to not yet be there, and "I'm leaving the store," which I could correctly say while still inside the store and headed for the door. In any case, rule 18.1(c) does not apply in the diagram because neither boat is approaching the mark.
Maybe an appropriate opposite of “leaving” is “arriving”?
FWIW, I’m not seriously contesting the common interpretation of those words... it just never occurred to me to examine them starkly before.
It seems to me that this has echoes of Case 132 in determining when boats, who are not at that moment on a close-hailed course, are still on a beat-to-windward because the larger picture of their proper course.
Here as well, a boat may be “sailing toward” a mark that she has already rounded (she is closing the distance to it), but she is not “approaching it” in the context of a broader understanding of her proper course being to sail away from the mark, thus “leaving it”.
Blue was entitled to mark room from Green as she was clear ahead at the zone. Green gave that mark room and Blue was given the space needed to sail to and round the mark. Green has no further obligation under rule 18.2b from position 5 onwards.
Neither the definition nor Case 132 state that the proper course is the course a boat is sailing, but rather the course she would sail in the absence of of other boats. In both scenarios at position 7 if Blue was not there Greens would harden up to a close hauled course, this would be her proper course. Therefore both boats are on a beat to windward, on opposite tacks. Rule 18 does not apply.
Tim Hohmann
Paddy Fitzpatrick
So you're talking about @7.
'completing' a tack has no relevance to rules transitions except for rule 13.
I agree that rule 18 ceases to apply @7, but not because B reaches a close hauled course.
@6 plus delta, B passed head to wind onto port tack, opposite tack to G, but G was still sailing within the mark-room to which she was entitled so rule 18 applied and the definition of overlap still applied to B and G even though they were on opposite tacks.
It’s the prickly little things that help to properly understand the nuances in the rules.
Thanks for an entertaining weekend of discussion! At least here in San Francisco it rained all weekend -- no sailing, no working on the boat, so this discussion was a welcome diversion.
As the weekend comes to a close, I'm waxing philosophical. Here's a little history of rule 18, as I recollect it:
Two decades ago, there were a number of conventions that "everybody knew" about rule 18 and mark-room, that weren't actually in the rulebook. The US Racing Rules Committee decided to attack this problem, and Ben Altman and I set out to include some of those conventions in the rule itself. Three of these conventions were as follows:
(1) If O, a right-of-way boat, is overlapped outside I as they enter the zone, O cannot luff I above a course that takes her directly to the mark. At the time, there were team-race and match-race calls to that effect, but no actual rule to support this idea;
(2) If a boat entitled to mark-room under rule 18.2(b) leaves the zone, she looses her entitlement to mark-room under that rule. Especially in team racing, one frequently heard hails of "you're outside the zone!" Nobody ever said "So what", even though there was no rule turning off rule 18.2(b) in that situation; and
(3) Rule 18 does not apply between a boat approaching the mark and one leaving it. There was a Case stating that a boat finishing her rounding of a port-hand windward mark and bearing off onto a run in front of an arriving port-tacker had to obey rule 16.1, but there was no rule to support that position. I don't believe there was anything written about boats arriving at and leaving a leeward mark.
Ben and I wrote two different new drafts of rule 18. The US RRC made them into Experimental Rules and people tried them out for a year, at various events. After gathering data on the experiment (Ben's idea of a 3-length zone instead of 2 was a smashing success), the RRC combined the best features of the two drafts into a proposed new rule 18. Our proposal was considered by World Sailing (ISAF at the time) and eventually a Working Party was formed, consisting of Richard Thompson and Chris Atkins from the UK, along with Ben, Dick Rose and me from the US. The result was pretty much what we have today, first published in the 2005-2008 RRS.
When we write a new rule, we try to be brief and clear. Those two goals frequently conflict, and so it was with our new rule 18 and definition mark-room. Every time we write something simple, using ordinary English words instead of defined terms, we hold our collective breath and hope sailors will interpret those words as intended and not split hairs. In some disciplines, such as team and match racing, precision is required because umpires have to make decisions on the spot and sailors are using the rules as weapons, not just shields; so that's where most such issues arise. Consider the conventions above and the words we wrote to make them into rules:
(1) We decided to include in the definition of mark-room "room to sail to the mark" (later modified to include this only if the proper course of the boat entitled to mark-room is to sail close to it). The words "sail to the mark" are a little vague -- suppose an outside overlapped ROW boat allows the inside boat just enough room to sail to the mark and run into it; is that "room to sail to the mark"? And what if the outside boat first forces the inside boat toward the wrong side of the mark, then at the last moment lets her in? Has she granted the inside boat mark-room? Happily, everybody interpreted "sail to the mark" as meaning "sail in a straight line to a place next to the mark where she can begin to round or pass it."
(2) This was easy. See rule 18.2(d).
(3) This resulted in rule 18.1(c), "[Rule 18 does not apply] between a boat approaching a mark and one leaving it". We knew that "approaching" and "leaving" were not precise terms in English, but we hoped that they captured the basic idea -- even if the boat leaving the mark is still at the mark, rule 18 does not apply between her and a boat that has not yet arrived at the mark. Mercifully, those words seem to have served well, but I'm still holding my breath (especially in light of the discussion this weekend).
One example of where we were disappointed in our hope that our words would be interpreted as we intended was in the expression "at the mark". Our original version of the definition mark-room said "room for a boat to sail to the mark, and then room to sail her proper course while at the mark." We argued that "at the mark" did not require precise definition because, once a boat was close to the mark her proper course was fixed -- basically, it was always to round it close at hand. But in this case, some match racers (and umpires) didn't buy that argument and we were compelled to define more precisely what the boat entitled to mark-room could do. The result was to double the length of the definition mark--room, split the definition into parts, use the awkward term "round the mark as necessary to sail the course", and add a new rule 18.2(c)(2) that gave the boat entitled to mark-room the right to sail her proper course if the other boat became overlapped inside her.
Another example of where we were forced to more carefully define some simple words was in "beat to windward" in rule 18.1. But don't get me started.
I do not understand how you can assert that Green had, at any time, mark-room.
In the original scenario: Blue entered the zone clear ahead, was clear ahead as she sailed to the mark and then rounded the mark as was clear ahead as she sailed away from the mark. Green had given Blue mark-room as required by 18.2b, which no longer applies.
In the alternate scenario: at 6, or just after, Blue, having been given mark-room by Green, passes head to wind and is on the opposite tack to Green. Green sails to the mark and starts to harden up towards her proper course which is close hauled. Rule 18 does not apply as boats are on opposite tacks on a beat to windward.
Look at both Rob’s and my breakdowns. Green get 18.2(a) MR from just after #6 until just before #7, where Green’s still somewhat abeam of the mark and thus still course-limited by it. Therefore from #6.1-#6.8, Green is owed 18.2(a) MR.
PS: change what I’ve been saying. As drawn, Blue was given mark-room when she reached close-hauled at 5.5.
At 6 (as drawn) Green and Blue are overlapped, so 18.2(a) applies at 6.0
Ang
a) Penalty on G, rrs-16
b) Penality on B, rrs-10
Thanks !!
https://www.racingrulesofsailing.org/cases/1465
I think that the situation is very similar, and the change of the course ( rrs-16 ) of Wallopping Swede is the same that Green did in the original case, so Wonder not broke rrs-10.....and Blue not broke rrs-10
Cheers !!!!
(thanks Tim and John for edits)
Facts Found:
[Green gave Blue mark-room, therefore 18.2(b) no longer applies between Blue and Green via 18.2(d)]STBPort. Green's stern passes the mark. Green is not yet to a close-hauled course. If Green were to hold her heading, she would pass astern of Blue.Conclusions:
and broke RRS 14, [edit: but is exonerated via 14(b) as there was no injury or damage].Decision:
and RRS 14(b).---------------------------------------------------------------
PS: I think I could make the argument that Blue was given mark-room by Green at 5, since Blue's inability to come to close-hauled has nothing to do with Green, but rather Blue's obligation to Boat-3 to allow Boat-3 to come up to close-hauled.
Any takers on that idea?
This Forum is a great way for share and learning !!!!
Cheers !!!
A couple of nits:
Regarding your PS, I think that Blue's proper course as she rounds must consider her obligation to avoid the unseen "mystery boat" (assuming that Blue owed and gave that boat mark room, which seems like a reasonable assumption). So Blue's proper course (with respect to her Rule 18 situation with at positions 4-5 with Green) is not close-hauled until she can come up without interfering with the other boat.
Just one nitty gritty Green would be exhonourated for RRS 14(b) since there was no injury or damage.
Ps thanks for all your efforts to present challenging scenarios
Paddy
If Boat 3 was irrelevant to the diagram, then surely she is irrelevant in the written facts found?
By all means start your facts found narratively a bit before the incident, but once your have reached your conclusions about the incident, go back and edit out facts not required to support your conclusions.
Try this.
Facts Found
said Created: Today 22:09
Good Get.
Paddy, well done, you got this one too.
Good Get.
Good Get.
B's proper course before she tacks is irrelevant, but B's proper course will always be not to hit other boats and objects, just as G's proper course near the mark is not to hit the mark.
@5, B has sailed to the mark and rounded it as necessary to sail the course: she has.been given the mark-room she is entitled to, and rule 18.2b ceases to apply in accordance with rule 18.2d. From here on only rule 18.2a can apply, but it only applies when boats are overlapped inside and outside.
Between @5 and @5.5, when, as a result of B luffing up into her tack B and G became overlapped, there was no overlap and rule 18.2a did NOT apply.
B continued to be required to give G mark-room until @7 when G’s proper course was no longer influenced by the mark and was to sail close hauled. At this point, and not before, boats, on opposite tacks, came to be both on a beat to windward and rule 18 in its entirety ceased to apply (rule 18.1a).
John, thanks for posting the concise decision as it would be written in reality (mine was not meant to be). I almost indicated that my warning and declaration of being purposely overly verbose and adding the descriptions in FF that normally wouldn’t belong, was because I knew my friend John would shiver at the sight of it all ;-)
Also, I agree with the PS analysis. Blue was given mark-room at 5 IMO.
But I think we get to the same result either way - sounds like the broad consensus is that G broke 16.1.
Please let me know what is incorrect below.
18 applies when the:
When 18 applies, next one goes through 18.2(a-f) thru 18.4 to see any of them apply.
At position 6, all the previous conditions are true, therefore 18 applies. Furthermore, at position 6, Green is inside-overlapped with Blue, therefore 18.2(a) applies between them until position 7, where 18.1(a) turns off 18.
I acknowledge the view that "getting closer to" = "approaching" in all instances but I don't think that's the sensible definition to use for the purpose of rule 18.