Wednesday, January 11, 2012

LASERS SAILING GETS EASIER

Reported in the recent Sailing World. Dick Rose and the US Sailing racing rules committee proposes some changes in the rules. They say that in some regattas a lot of protests are made. In others none or not many. Some fleets are doing a lot of penalty turns and other fleets not many. They don’t state where the data came from, but they want to fix it.

Three ways: 1) change the two turn to one turn penalty except in the zone except for the start. (Apparently one turns at the start)

2) If protested and didn’t do on water turns, accept fault and receive 20 % penalty or 30% depending on how quickly you do it.

3) A simpler protest procedure.

So, no real change in the rules –just the penalty system.

Talk it over with your fleet. You can use the experimental rules or not. Don’t disappoint the Rules Committee. They will keep meeting.
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3 comments:

  1. Can you send me a pdf of the article by D.Rose? I can't find it on the Sailing World website...
    rrs-study(at)home(dot)nl Thanks!

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  2. Easier? This sounds harder to me. It's bad enough having to decide whether we were in the zone or not when we established an overlap. But now we are going to have to do a different penalty depending on whether we have crossed an invisible line on the water or not? Sounds like that's going to be a source of even more disagreements.

    I do like the idea of a percentage penalty for RAF though. I think that will encourage more people to take that option.

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  3. Down here in central Florida we paint that line in the water.

    Don't worry they will change the rule again. I am still calling "mast abeam". Go figure.

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