For safety reasons, our club has a requirement that each boat needs to check in with the R/C prior to the first race of the evening. A boat failed to check in prior to the first race recently and the race committee is enforcing the SI. The scorer wants to score the situation correctly.
The requirement is stated in the SI's as follows:
Boats shall check in with the Race Committee before the start of the evening's racing and prior to the Warning signal by sailing by the Committee boat on starboard tack, hailing her skipper’s name, boat’s name, and sail number. Failure to check in will result in not being scored for that race.
Our club uses a version of "long series low-point" scoring such that DNC is based on total entries in the whole season series, but DNS and DNF are based on number of starters on the particular day. So, there is a difference of a couple points between a DNC and a DNS in the season scoring tally.
So, the questions are:
- Should the boat be scored DNS, DNF or DNC or even DSQ, and why? If not DSQ, the RRS do not give much guidance that I can find... both DNS and DNC include in their definition that it refers to a "boat that did not start." Maybe more guidance is provided somewhere in the judge's standards. Or, is a DSQ the correct code? But, would DSQ in this case require a protest hearing?
- The wording in the SI: "... result in not being scored for that race" is ambiguous regarding the actual scoring code to be applied. Is this situation a case where the RRS does not dictate and it is up to the SI to define the scoring code? Thus, would it be better to spell out in the SI the specific scoring code such that "...failure to check in results in a DNC (or DNS, or DSQ) for the race?