Skip to main content

Training Materials, Presentations and Classes

Online Quiz Game For New Competitors

Unsubscribe
Stephen Lomnes
Nationality: United States
Our local sailing club is trying to get more participation in racing.  One of the bottlenecks hypothesized is that new to racing sailors might not know the rules (well enough) and are affraid of getting things wrong on the course and get scolded.  Yikes!

To help our club members I whipped up this structured RRS quiz game (with the help of Claude) to cover the basic components of Part 2 organized by sections A-D with an optional quiz for definitions that are relevant to the rules in this part. 

I've gotten positive feedback from our club leadership and thought I'd share the link here for feedback, and in case its useful as a training resource for others. It's free and doesn't collect any user information.

You can share feedback through the site or post it here if you see anything that is wrong or could be better. It should work on mobile devices as well as desktop browsers.

https://sailing-rules.lomnes.com/
Created: Yesterday 17:19
Tips
100 WIND
great development. thanks for sharing
2026-09-02 - Lauren Twigg
100 WIND
great development. thanks for sharing
2026-09-02 - Lauren Twigg

Comments

Format:
P
Angelo Guarino
Forum Moderator
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
Not a fan of this answer ...

image.png
image.png 234 KB
Created: Yesterday 18:58
Mike Fering
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
You've put a lot of effort into this! I found it to be exhausting to read everything and take the quizzes. I also thought some of the graphics could be less confusing. For instance, I find it confusing when a red dialog pops up when I select a correct answer. Red means wrong, right? Numbering the boat positions (which is a convention here) would help me quickly understand the scenario. Removing the mark and mark rounding arrow when they're not pertinent would help. Overall, I think that if your target audience is newbies, this may do more to scare them away than make them comfortable on the racecourse. For them, simplifying would help.
Created: Yesterday 19:11
Stephen Lomnes
Nationality: United States
Thanks for running through it Mike! Red does indicate that the game thought you got the answer wrong.  I'll look into numbering positions and removing marks when they aren't relevant.  Thanks for the awesome feedback!
Created: Today 00:59
Zev Fort
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Judge
image.png
image.png 296 KB
The title of the situation implies this occurs prior to the start. The side bar notes that RRS 17 may be in effect, but fails to discuss the limitations of Proper Course, being that there is no proper course prior to the starting signal.
Created: Yesterday 19:23
Stephen Lomnes
Nationality: United States
Reply to: 22466 - Zev Fort
Thanks for looking through Zev.  Good catch that the scenarios in the sandbox section are not very clear.  I'll clean up how this works and is presented.  It's confusing.   The quiz ("Learn") section B does cover the limitation of Proper Course prior to start - but in this part of the app it's not clear at all.  Thank you!
Created: Today 01:07
Daniel Hewlette
Nationality: United States
Thanks for building and sharing!

I generally like this as a learning tool, but some of the situations could use more setup to guide the learner towards the specific rule being tested.

For example, I got this one wrong because it was not clear to me the question assumes yellow did not have time to change course / if blue does not change course they will collide. If "The move" had said "You hold your course, causing contact with yellow", that would have been a stronger setup, as it is impossible to infer if there is/is not still plenty of time for Yellow to change course using just the drawing.
collision q.png
collision q.png 970 KB


Same thing happened in the section when it came to luffing rights. This situation's answer (and another before it) turns on how the overlap was established, but the setup does not tell you how the overlap was established.

luffing rights 1.png
luffing rights 1.png 495 KB


This is as far as I've made it, but I'll definitely keep an eye on this. I've found rules-related questions put to AI to be answered ok for the basics, but replies are quite poor for tricky situations involving multiple rules. So Im curious if you verified all the situations/answers throughout the tool.
Created: Yesterday 20:46
Mike Fering
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
I'll chime in again to say that I agree with these points, particularly the Rule 14 questions. In all cases I thought a collision might be avoided by swift and decisive action, but that was not the allowed answer.
Created: Yesterday 23:16
I too see the effort that has gone in. Good on you. If it were me, I’d try to stick to the common phrases used to describe things. How the forums experts word things here is a great example. I’d understand hesitancy to use complicated wording, as can be the case here, but I wouldn’t invent a new lot of wording instead. 
I’m not sure the relevance of the (0.5 boat length?)circles around the boats, they may confuse beginners into thinking there is some relevancy. 
Rule 12, ‘same tack, inline’, isn’t the right wording. 

‘The identical turn, and this time legal. Rule 16 does not forbid changing course; it requires that the other boat be left able to respond. Three lengths of water is room, and she has time to head up with you.’

I’d be careful about the expectations this sets. Would people leave expecting a boat less that 3 lengths to leeward to not change course? 

It’s the high level of nuance that makes this tricky. Keep at it!
Created: Today 03:58
I too see the effort that has gone in. Good on you. If it were me, I’d try to stick to the common phrases used to describe things. How the forums experts word things here is a great example. I’d understand hesitancy to use complicated wording, as can be the case here, but I wouldn’t invent a new lot of wording instead. 
I’m not sure the relevance of the (0.5 boat length?)circles around the boats, they may confuse beginners into thinking there is some relevancy. 
Rule 12, ‘same tack, inline’, isn’t the right wording. 

‘The identical turn, and this time legal. Rule 16 does not forbid changing course; it requires that the other boat be left able to respond. Three lengths of water is room, and she has time to head up with you.’

I’d be careful about the expectations this sets. Would people leave expecting a boat less that 3 lengths to leeward to not change course? 

It’s the high level of nuance that makes this tricky. Keep at it!
Created: Today 03:58
You must be signed in to add a comment.
Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn more