Last month I started discussing this years changes to the rules. There is one final change to discuss this month. The situation described here is one that I can pretty well promise you will never run into. It no longer makes any sense to try it since they have plugged the loophole.Even last year when the loophole existed you would probably only run into it while team racing. At first when the scenario was suggested people said that it couldn’t be done. There are however some videos on the web demonstrating that it can be done. US Intercollegiate racing “fixed it” last year because they felt that it was possible. As usual I am only going to explain how the new rule works.If you want further explanation of how the original wording applied to this situation, you will have to either work it out for yourself or attend a seminar and ask me there. I believe that there is a seminar set for the club on March 24th. Further details maybe elsewhere in this Kwasind or on Jmail. Rule 18.2 (c) is changed as follows:
18.2(c): When a boat is required to give mark-room by rule 18.2(b), she shall continue to do so even if later an overlap is broken or a new overlap begins. However, if the boat entitled to mark-room passes head to wind or leaves the zone, rule 18.2(b) ceases to apply.
Rule 18.2(b), which wasn’t changed says :
18.2 (b) If boats are overlapped when the first of them reaches the zone, the outside boat at that moment shall thereafter give the inside boat mark-room. If a boat is clear ahead when she reaches the zone, the boat clear astern at that moment shall thereafter give her mark-room.
(click on the diagram to see a larger cleaner version)
If we look at the diagram we see two boats approaching a leeward mark, probably in a team race. Yellow gets to the three length zone (it would actually be two in most team races) clear ahead of blue. Closer to the mark she slows down. Blue catches up and then with in the zone does a tack. Since blue is a keen reader of various sources of information about the racing rules, he has heard that a tack will help him so he does a complete tack and gybe within the zone. He then tries to go inside yellow. He hasn’t correctly read the 2010 version of this rule. The rule says that the boat clear ahead at the zone (yellow) is entitled to “mark-room”. It says that it stops applying if the boat entitled to mark room passes head to wind. The boat entitled to mark-room is yellow and she never passes head to wind so she is still entitled to mark-room. Blue is not entitled to mark-room so this clause doesn’t apply to her tack.
© Copyright 2010 Andrew Alberti