Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing

Recent SailGP Incidents

Colin Huggett
Nationality: Canada
In Race 4 of the recent SailGP event in San Francisco there is an incident at a leeward mark rounding wherein Team USA, arriving first at the three boat length circle, shuts the door on what appears to me to be an inside overlapped Spanish boat, with a resulting collision.  We do not hear the umpires call, but the live broadcast expert commentary all seem to agree that USA had the right of way because "it arrived at the mark circle first", which they seem to say determines right of way, regardless of whether Spain had an inside overlap on USA when USA got to the circle.  Is this the rule in SailGP, or do the experts have it wrong?  If that is the rule, how is an inside overlapped boat supposed to get out of the way??  I hacve not been able to find any commentary on the incident other than what is on the live video broadcast.

This incident occurs at 29:08 of the live broadcast in the link below.

There is another incident in Race 5 that I also don't understand.  It occurs at 46:50 of the broadcast.  In this incident, France and NZL are both sailing downwind on port tack and neither will clear USA on Starboard, also sailing downwind.  NZL, which is to windward of France, appears to decide it is going to avoid the Starboard tack USA by gybing inside of USA, and starts to bear off onto France.  France appears to decide it it going to avoid USA by heading up and taking the stern of USA.  A near collision occurs between NZL and France, and both end up staying on the Port gybe and taking the stern of USA.  The expert commentary is to the effect that France fouled NZL because it should have gybed first and allowed NZL to gybe inside of USA.  But surely NZL was windward boat and had to keep clear of France and instead of trying to gybe it should have headed up and taken USA's stern, giving France room if it needed it to clear the starboard tack boat.  Or do I have the wrong end of the stick again? We do not get to hear the Umpires call and I can't find any commentaryon this incident either.   What say you?? 

This incident is at 46:50 of the video link.

Here is the link (hope it works!):
LIVE: 2022 Mubadala United States SailGP | Day 2 - Bing video 
Created: 22-May-10 02:42

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