Angelo,

Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly respond to my comments. I'm going to take another stab at this, which may just bury me deeper in a hole or help me to climb out of it.

 

With these statements, you indicate that IYO Blue has turned off Rule 18 by virtue of coming to close hauled on port tack. Am I getting caught up in thinking that it is the tack to starboard that turns off Blue's entitlement to MR but does not turn off 18 as a whole, as you point out. This is the point (@3) that I think Yellow acquires MR as, I believe, she is overlapped inside of Blue.

Def Overlap, [These terms] apply to boats on opposite tacks only when rule 18 applies between them.

I contend that 18.2(a) does give Yellow MR. Yellow is not behind the line abeam from Blue's transom.

My thinking around the topic of 'proper course' is that all boats have a proper course anywhere on the race course (after the start signal of course) and is the course chosen to be sailed in the absence of other competitors (good, bad or otherwise). It is the RRS that occasionally use the term, mostly not, to either allow you to sail your 'proper course', prohibit you from sailing your 'proper course' or oblige you to sail your 'proper course'. Maybe the term 'preferred course' would be more appropriate when referring to actions on the race course when talking about situations that involve rules that do not explicitly use the term in the rule governing the situation.

With that in mind, @ position 3 Yellow is confronted with the decision of whether to turn and sail her 'preferred course' which she believes is within her MR privileges or to sail beyond the mark and duck a starboard tack boat that is sailing some other 'preferred course' and hail "protest". Remember that these are Radio Controlled boats and all of this is happening (with any wind at all) in a matter of 2-4 seconds.

If we go back to applying RRS 15 and/or 16.1 to this situation and Yellow is at, say position 3.3 she would be pretty committed to making her turn around the mark, with or without MR, and at 2.9 not so much.

I still think Blue made a pretty "bone headed" maneuver in the zone of the leeward mark and Yellow is suffering for it.

Thanks for listening.

Hmm.. This discussion on improving the rules wording is based on a system designed in Lord Nelson's days.  Visual signals preferred because the speed of light is better than the speed of sound.  Start Guns because you had spare cannons laying around in those days.

I wonder if its time for a paradigm shift, and look for changes appropriate to the modern world we live in.

Before we go making suggestions to reinforce old-school concepts such as 'must take times from flags' and 'ROs must hoist flags at certain times or else...', perhaps we should think long term.

We all have GPS coordinated clocks / watches / MFDs etc on board.  The times are suitably synced with accuracy required to fairly start races.  Most ROs are using GPS time anyway.

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26. STARTING RACES 
Races shall be started according to the following sequence.

Times shall be taken from a GPS time source and any signal shall fall on a whole minute.

The corresponding visual signals shall be made at the or as closely after corresponding sequence times as possible.  The race committee shall signal a general recall if there has been an error in visual signals. However, the absence of sound signals shall be disregarded.
===========================

For OPs case, abandoning should be the last resort.  It's clear that redress is available.

It seems sensible to leave the results for all the OCS (hoping they were recorded at the finish), and work redress in for the two boats who got it technically right.  Rather than ruining everyone's day.  Get the whole fleet together and let them agree on scores!

Our radio sailing fleet has "seasonal" series in which any one day's participation can range between 4 and 15.
We recently considered invoking A5.3 in our General NOR, but that still does not meet our needs.
We are now going with the default A5.2, but adding "Each day's racing will be scored separately."

Thanks a lot. :-)

The issue is: "to reduce/discourage late port tack approach to windward mark."

Starboard tack boats should possess protest flags and the fortitude to follow through with a protest.
Seems the problem would thereby resolve itself in time - without pink marks.