Rule 18 and Room at the Mark
Sail proper course in the zone without interference
In this scenario Yellow and Green are sailing downwind on port tacks. They must round a mark to port in light wind. When Yellow enters the zone, she is clear ahead of Green. When Green (2) entering the zone Yellow is rounding the mark and tacks to starboard. Yellow (3) sail on starboard tack and Green (3) had to heads up to avoid Yellow. There was no contact put, Green (4) hit the mark and took a one penalty turn.
Is Yellow required to give mark-room to Green so she can sail their proper course without interference from Yellow?
Created: Yesterday 17:08
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John
I cannot tell from the diagram whether green has to alter course before yellow has born off to close hauled. If it is established as a fact that she did, then Angelo is correct.
But, even if yellow completes the tack before green has to alter course, there is still rule 15 to deal with.
After yellow has completed the tack, she "initially" owes green room to keep clear (which green apparently does get) AND room to comply with the other rules of part two and rule 31 (avoiding hitting the mark).
It does not appear that sufficient room was given for green to comply with rule 31, by maneuvering promptly in a seamanlike manner.
If the facts found are that the tack is completed in time, the PC could still DSQ yellow for breaking rule 15.
Yellow does not owe Green any mark-room. After position 3, Green chooses to turn back toward the mark to attempt to round it on its proper side .. she was not compelled to do that and was not owed mark-room by Yellow to do so.
I think it's clear, based on the drawing, Green altered course before Yellow completed her tack. There is no contact and there is no claim that Green maneuvered in an unseamanlike way. Therefore IMO 15 was not broken by Yellow. Green had room and used that room to keep clear once Yellow completed her tack (after Yellow broke 13).
OK .. for the sake of argument, let's say that Yellow DOES complete her tack before Green alters course ... and Green is able to keep clear in a seamanlike way .. what then? If that tack was clean .. and Green could keep clear in a seamanlike way ... I don't see Yellow breaking a rule.
PS: Unless u argue that is Yellow was not sailing her proper course by tacking. Then one might apply RRS 23.2 Interfernce as they are sailing on different legs of the course.
@4 when G touches the mark Y is 2.5 boat lengths away. You can't say she is not giving G room to not touch the mark.
Regarding your last "PS," I think rule 23.2 could only be invoked if the course to the next mark was a port fetch. We disagree on how clear the diagram is as to when green had to alter course and whether it happened during yellows tack. That certainly could be the case and your analysis is correct if it is. I just would want more information before I signed off on that.
I take your point about 15. We agree Green was given room to avoid yellow after yellow tacked and it seems green avoided in a seamanlike manner. Upon reflection, I agree with you that Yellow's rule 15 obligation does not extend to giving her room to turn and round the mark. Green was given room to avoid hitting the mark. She chose to try to round.
In that case, since green did her 360, there would be no foul here.
Hailing can be one act a boat attempts to avoid contact with another boat. However hailing doesn't buy you extra rights or satisfy a requirement when one boat may owe another boat RRS 15 room in the future.
RRS 15's room has to be given, regardless of any announcements made. 15 doesn't apply until Yellow completes her tack. Announcements made prior to tacking have no "power".
A boat tacking inside the zone into oncoming traffic is executing a dangerous and rule-risky maneuver. Case 50 will be on the side of the non-tacking, approaching boat .. as it will be not too high a hurdle to convince a jury that they had "reasonable apprehension" for a course change when a boat is tacking into their face (as illustrated in the OP diagram)
Here's my analysis.
At the time of the incident RRS 18 does not apply between Y, leaving the mark and G approaching it (RRS 18.1(a)(3))
Y, leaving he mark is on a different leg to B approaching the mark and is required to avoid interfering with G unless Y is sailing her proper course (RRS 23.2)
Between @1.8 and @2.2, Y touches the mark and decides to take a penalty.
Her proper course then, is to get well clear of other boats and promptly make her turn (RRS 44.2).
Y can promptly do this by, bearing away to starboard and gybing: to continue changing course to port around the mark and past head to wind is not Y's proper course.
Assuming that @3-delta Y reached her close hauled course, and @3 is complying with her RRS 15 obligation to give G room to keep clear, G is changing course to keep clear of Y and Y is interfering with G, while Y is not sailing her proper course.
Y breaks RRS 23.3 and on valid protest should be penalised.
Did you mean Green hit the mark @4?
I'll leave it up there for a while if anyone wants to discuss proper course is to take a penalty.
So, for the purposes of a hearing, if facts found that Y’s tack required G to avoid her before Y ended up on a close hauled S course, then Y breaks 13. If at the point that Y established a S close hauled course and G had to immediately avoid to keep clear, then Y breaks 15. Otherwise, no foul on Y or G, and G’s contact with the mark is unrelated and her taking a penalty turn exonerates her from breaking 31.
What’s missing in the diagram is what G had to do when Y tacked (eg between 2 and 3).
G was required to keep clear of Y immediately Y reached her close hauled course (RRS 10). She was initially entitled to room to keep clear (RRS 15), Y bore away and gave her that room.
Y broke no rule.
You raise quite a lot of points in your post. I'll try to reply to them.
Firstly, I'm not sure what you mean by 'expressly relies on'. I'll take it that you mean no more than 'expressly refers to'.
That would be, in addition to the Definition Proper Course itself, Definition Mark-room, RRS 17, RRS 18.1(a)(2), RRS 18.4, and RRS 23.2.
To consider any specific matter in a protest committee's deliberations, it is by no means necessary to 'show' that a certain rule applies. Protest committees need to be prepared to consider all rules that may apply.
And also including RRS 23.2 which contains a proper course exception.
When judges are discussing a written 'rules problem', by convention, they do not rely on any fact not stated in the problem, for example if there is no mention of contact, then it is taken that contact did not occur. It is, however useful to make some assumptions for the sake of discussion, for example, in a diagram, that the wind is coming from the top of the page, or, as in this case, that the next mark is to windward. Some of these assumptions will be stated, some just made and then left open to challenge by others participating in the discussion
Just as in a live protest hearing, judges will consider all the evidence available including diagrams, textual descriptions, images, and some 'notorious facts' ('notorious' being used in its proper meaning of well-known, not 'infamous'), like boats will normally sail close hauled at about 45 to 40 degrees to the wind.
I think it's a pretty fair assumption in this case that this is a normal W/L course and the next mark is to windward. Anyone that wants to challenge this is welcome to do so, as Anthony did in post 21762.
I think judges are perfectly entitled to assume that the situation is 'normal', until there is evidence to the contrary.
FWIW, an assertion that a boat is sailing her proper course would be a 'conclusion' rather than a fact found: it involves reasoning and judgement, see Case 104.
A boat can have more than one proper course. Where the next mark is to windward, her proper course may be to sail close hauled on either tack. There may be times when a boat's proper course is to tack.
It may be that Yellow's proper course is irrelevant to the conclusions and decisions, but it may be by no means irrelevant to the analysis.
And there's nothing 'legal' about a protest hearing or a discussion among judges.
RRS 18.3 is an interesting proposition.
At an enormous stretch you could say, if there was justification like a shift or a puff, that the proper course of G at the mark is to tack, so RRS 18 is not switched off in its entirety by RRS 18.1(a)(2).
I think that once Y changes course to windward so that she is no longer sailing more than ninety degrees from the true wind, she is sailing away from the mark (increasing distance between her and the mark), so she is 'leaving' the mark, and RRS 18 is switched off by RRS 18.1(a)(3).
So RRS 18.3 does not apply.
Also
Y passes head to wind from port to starboard in the zone of a mark to be left to port.
RRS 18.3 says that RRS 18.2 does not apply between her and another boat on starboard tack that is fetching the mark.
A boat is fetching a mark when she is in a position to pass to windward of it and leave it on the required side without changing tack.
G is not in a position to pass to windward of the mark and leave it on the required side (port).
G is neither on starboard tack nor fetching the mark. RRS 18.3 does not apply
Yes, even though RRS 18.3 does not apply, when it does it does not depend on proper course.
That's quite sufficient for our purposes of discussion.
Rules that are proved to be applicable and broken will be shown in the protest commitee's Conclusions, and of course, these must be supported by Facts Found.
Any boat anywhere is perfectly entitled to manoeuvre so as to 'tactically embarrass' another boat, provided she complies with the rules, in particular, in this case RRS 15.
And there is nothing dangerous about sailing as long as boats keep clear and give room.
There are lots of types of boats where the diagrammed manoeuvre would be completely unproblematic.
G is plodding along downwind, trailing, setting up for a routine port tack rounding. She should be set up for a windward drop, maybe with the pole off, in which case she will have no problem gybing back after luffing to keep clear of Y, or maybe she will still have the pole up: if she leaves the pole up too long after the drop, she'll be in trouble. Dropping the pole quickly and tacking the headsail over the pole requires people to know what and how to do it. I think that is right on the cusp of 'competent but not expert', but maybe it's a little on the 'very competent' side.
Sure .. if there is plenty of space between boats .. nothing wrong with this maneuver.
The larger the fleet .. they tighter the racing .. the larger the boats and the faster they are moving .. the more caution I think the situation deserves.
I know this isn't relevant to the question, but I agree with this analysis but take it one step further. If it was a dipole boat, Blue's pole would be in the process of coming off at position 2. When Yellow starts the tack, Blue jibes onto starboard and starts dousing the spinnaker on the port side, crosses in front of Yellow, then jibes back. This sets up a faster rounding (wide to tight) for Blue. I also agree this would need a 'very competent' crew.
It’s the initially that gives trouble in interpreting RRS 15. Olafur’s description notes G heads up to avoid Y, but the diagram isn’t clear when between 2 and 3 that happens. I’d agree that it appears Y satisfies 15, but obviously the facts found in a protest would dictate that. From experience with an appeal many years ago, I learned that the initially in 15 turns off “immediately” after “initially”.
Right… take a gate mark where taking the favored gate and immediately tacking can gain you boat lengths. Sure, you risk conflict with other downwind boats but tactically it’s the sound racing move.
I see maneuvers like this every week in our Melges 24 fleet; they’ll almost always opt for this exact maneuver to do a Mexican drop, and often rounding with larger slower boats at the same mark. Are they all experts? Nope, but all certainly competent.
Having a pole plumbed into you mast makes quite a lot of difference.
Roon is given if there is no contact unless contact was only avoided by an unseamanlike manoeuvre, breach of a rule or a miracle.