Rule 18 and Room at the Mark
Pin Near Hazard
Hello, friends!
I am not an official and only a recreational racer. It would be a pleasure to see your thoughts on the following.
Scenario: A starting pin that is a permanent red channel marker is located 20 feet from a white float warning of a sunken marine hazard thought to be 5 feet around. Racing boats are 35 feet long.
A. Please confirm/deny the correctness of the following decision tree.
Is the pin an obstruction? If yes,
Is the pin a continuing obstruction? If no,
Is the pin surrounded by navigable water? If no,
Then Rule 18 applies at the pin.
I am not an official and only a recreational racer. It would be a pleasure to see your thoughts on the following.
Scenario: A starting pin that is a permanent red channel marker is located 20 feet from a white float warning of a sunken marine hazard thought to be 5 feet around. Racing boats are 35 feet long.
A. Please confirm/deny the correctness of the following decision tree.
Is the pin an obstruction? If yes,
Is the pin a continuing obstruction? If no,
Is the pin surrounded by navigable water? If no,
Then Rule 18 applies at the pin.
B. Please discuss whether under the facts the pin is actually a continuing obstruction and whether the pin is actually surrounded by navigable water.
C. If Rule 18 applies under the above facts, please discuss whether Rule 18 can be “turned off” by defining the starting pin mark as “collectively the red channel marker and white float.”
Thank you.
Thank you.
Created: Yesterday 16:17
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Neither is it a continuing obstruction.
As I live in France I willl give you the standard answer to everything : It depends. Is the water tidal? Does the white mark move significantly? How much water is there above the sunken marine hazard? How wide are these 35 feet long boats? Could any boat of that type, with a crew with an expected level of competence, manoeuvre in a seamanlike manner around the mark in any expected weather conditions/sea state?
C: RRS 86.1 A rule of Part 2 cannot be changed. To get around the whole issue, my preferred wording in the SIs would be along the lines of: No boat may cross a line between the starting mark (red channel marker) and the white float, in either direction.
Here are my thoughts:
A. Your logic isn't quite right. If the pin is both a mark and an obstruction and is large enough to be a continuing obstruction then rule 18 does not apply per 18.1(a)(4) and the last sentence of 19.1. It doesn't matter whether it is surrounded by navigable water. Note the italics as you have to read the definitions for each carefully.
B. It depends on the size of the channel marker.
C. As Ant says, you cannot simply turn off rule 18 and default to rule 19 or 20. If you create a new obstruction line between the pin and the hazard and prohibit boats from crossing that line as Ant describes, you are getting closer. However, from the sizes you describe, the obstruction line may not be long enough to meet the definition of a continuing obstruction.
The red channel marker is a start mark, so the first question should be, “is it surrounded by navigable water or not?”
The hazard (5’ underwater obstruction) is 20’ away, so can a 35’ boat safely pass on either side of the start mark? Probably. So, if it’s decided that the start mark is surrounded by navigable water we can stop there because the Section C rules do not apply.
If the start mark is NOT surrounded by navigable water then R18 applies, the start mark is an obstruction, but that is irrelevant because of R19.1(a).
Almost certainly not, but the side of the channel may be.
Not enough information.
But just because something meets the definition of obstruction it doesnt necessarily mean the obstruction rules apply. Most marks are large enough to be obstructions.
Yes, my logic statement is murky in part because it is naturally read as "if and only if," but I did not mean that.
Let me try to narrow down the issue I'm having.
Let us set aside the question of obstruction/continuing obstruction. I think that question is (almost) a red herring because the pin/mark (or pin/mark/float combination) is almost certainly not a continuing obstruction.
Let's just assume the critical question here for preamble purposes (as Eric says) is whether the pin/mark is surrounded by navigable water. The answer to that is: "depends". Got it.
But it would be much better if the racers had certainty about whether Rule 18 applies at this pin/mark. And, I think most agree (not sure) that it is usually better for Rule 18 to NOT apply. The SI's can be used to create certainty. Oddly stated, perhaps, but the goal here is to use the text of the SIs to surround the pin/mark with navigable water.
I have a problem with Ant's proposed solution, which is to say in the SIs that boats may not cross an imaginary line between the pin/mark and the float. In my mind, this does not solve the problem because the pin is still not surrounded by navigable water. My proposed SI edit would include the float in the definition of pin/mark and thus make the pin/mark surrounded by navigable water.
The pin is the pin. The float is the float.
Pretty wild stuff, but am I wrong?
I don't think you wish to: "...include the float in the definition of pin/mark, thus make the pin/mark surrounded by navigable water." What constitutes "navigable water" depends on the boat and a number of other factors including sailing skill, sea state, hight of tide, etc...
Rather, I'd suggest the NoR and the SIs reference the described white mark with a description of what it is alleged to be marking. I would probably include a statement along the lines of: "CAUTION: A white ball has been reported in the area of XXX longitude and YYY lattitude. It is reported to mark a sunken marine hazard. Competitors are alerted that it is near the Pin End of the starting line." I would also verbally mention this at the Competitor's Briefing.
I would not go further in an attempt to engineer the competitor's behavior, and thereby take some responsibility for a boat's safe navigation near a marine hazard.
I agree that defining/describing the starting mark to include the channel marker and the sunken object and the line between them will create a large starting mark which will be surrounded by navigable water, so Preamble to Section C will operate to switch off all mark-room and obstruction rules while starting.
There are disadvantages to having very large starting marks (although once upon a time we used to use whole battleships for starting vessels). There used to be a whole section of RO training explaining disadvantages of using a large vessel at the pin. Principally the disadvantage is that it creates a no-go zone around the precise end of the starting line, so at the least the length of the starting line needs to be increased to allow for this.
The white float marks a sunken marine hazard thought to be 5 feet around. It is an Obstruction as it is an object that a boat could not pass without changing course substantially, if she were sailing directly towards it and one of her hull lengths from it. Definition Obstruction.
The permanent red channel mark, which is being used as a starting mark, is both a mark and an obstruction. However, Section C rules do not apply between the boats with respect to the permanent red channel mark because it is a starting mark. Preamble Part 2 Section C.
The boats that are racing are 35ft long. The white float is within 1 boat length of the permanent red channel mark.
In the following scenarios I have assumed that the white float is abeam of the permanent red channel mark and outside of the starting line as diagramed below.
The rules that apply vary slight depending upon how the boats are approaching the mark.
When approaching on port tack.
Yellow is on port tack lay line to the permanent red channel mark and passing the sunken marine hazard to port. Blue is overlapped to windward and will need to make a substantial course change to avoid the sunken marine hazard safely. Yellow, the outside boat, does not give Blue, the inside boat, room between her and the obstruction.
Yellow the outside boat at the obstruction, failed to give Blue room to pass between her and the obstruction, despite being able to do so from the time the overlap began. Yellow broke RRS 19.2(b).
Yellow DSQ
When approaching on starboard tack.
Yellow is on starboard tack lay line to the permanent red channel mark. Blue is overlapped to leeward and will need to make a substantial course change to avoid the sunken marine hazard safely. Blue hails for 'room to tack' under rule 20.1(a). Yellow does not respond either by tacking as soon as possible, or by immediately replying ‘You tack’ and then giving the hailing boat room to tack and avoid her.
Yellow failed to tack as soon as possible after Blue hailed "Room to tack", as required by RRS 20.2(b) and (c).
Yellow DSQ
It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas!
I’m unclear from your description. At first you imply that the red channel mark is surrounded by navigable water (section C rules do not apply), but then in the scenario you make it appear that a boat can not pass between the start mark and the underwater obstruction 20’ away.
I think that we need to determine if the start mark is or is not surrounded by navigable water. If it is not, then shouldn’t RRS 18 govern?
But Mark's diagram of the mark, float, and line are good.
What difference does having the Section C rules apply to the permanent red channel mark make to the outcome?
In the first diagram of a port tack start, if the start mark is surrounded by navigable water blue sails between the red and white buoys and there is no foul. If the start mark is not surrounded by navigable water, DSQ yellow 18.2(a)(1). But the first step is to find a fact that the start mark is or is not surrounded by navigable water.
In some conditions 17’ is plenty of room for a 35’ boat to safely pass between two objects. In some conditions this might not be true.
From a race management perspective, the easy solution is to write into the NoR/SI that the start mark is not surrounded by navigable water to remove any doubt.
Firstly, I think Eric's approach was a good one, particularly dealing with a starting mark.
The starting mark described in the OP could be an obstruction because it was so large that it met the substantial change at one boat length criterion in Definition: Obstruction (a), or it might be (e.g. a pile marker) so small that it did not meet that criterion.
If the starting mark was not surrounded by navigable water because it was unsafe to pass between the mark and the nearby danger, then the starting mark was an object that could safely be passed on only one side so it met the criterion in Definnition: Obstruction (b), and was an obstruction, regardless of its size.
So 'surrounded by navigable water is a useful test because it provides a result regardless of the size of the mark.
The space between the outside of the sunkenn object and the [centre of the] mark is 17.5 ft, suppose the mark itself is 5 ft in diameter, so the 'navigable space' between the mark and the sunken object is 15 ft.
Eric's opinion was that 15 space was sufficient for a 35 ft boat to pass through and hence was navigable water.
I would think that that would require fairly benign conditions. It is reasonable to consider the straight through course at right angles to the line between the mark and the sunken object in making this judgement.
Mark's examples are of close hauled boats approaching the line between the objects at an oblique angle (and I suspect that the scaling in Mark's diagrams is a little on the skinny side). I think his judgement that there was insufficient room is OK.
I don't think that 'navigable water' necesssarily implies 'enough space'
Let's consider the OP situation. The sunken object is 5 ft in diameter. The distance between the outside of the channel marker (assumign also a 5 ft diameter) and the outside of the sunken object is thus 25 ft.
We can now apply the definitino of continuing obstruction 'at least 3 hull lengths'. In the OP case we have a boat of hull length 35 ft, so the channel marker and the sunken object combined are less than 3 hull lengths and therefore do not constitute a continuing obstruction.
So, considereing the applicability of RRS 18 at a start, and assuming that we agree that the mark is NOT surrounded by navigable water:
Only way i can see a problem is a boat trying to do a late start at the pin from outside on the course side.
We all seem to agree that the sunken marine hazard is an obstruction and it is not a mark or another boat overlapped with each of them. So rule19 and rule 20 apply between two boats when they are at the sunken marine hazard.
The permanent red channel mark is an obstruction and a mark. You can sail around the mark without leaving the zone. Does this make it a starting mark surrounded by navigable water?
If we remove the permanent red channel mark and just consider the sunken marine hazard. Why does Yellow not have to tack?
Yellow is on starboard tack. Blue is overlapped to leeward and will need to make a substantial course change to avoid the sunken marine hazard safely. Blue hails for 'room to tack' under rule 20.1(a). Yellow does not respond either by tacking as soon as possible, or by immediately replying ‘You tack’ and then giving the hailing boat room to tack and avoid her.
Yellow failed to tack as soon as possible after Blue hailed "Room to tack", as required by RRS 20.2(b) and (c).
Yellow DSQ