Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing

Scoring during COVID?

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Peter Nielsen
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • National Umpire
I’m looking for opinions about scoring a regatta series that was cut short by COVID issues. The series is raced on 5 club owned 26ft keel boats, during 10 weeks of once a week racing. There are 3 session of racers (15 total teams) and all teams race in just one (the same) session each week. So, there is no rotation of teams, none of the competitors from one session, have ever raced anyone in a different session. The 10th week of the series is the “championship” day, the 3 - 1st place teams in their session move on to the afternoon championship session, in the morning, the 3 - 2nd place teams and 2 wildcard teams race a sail-in to see what other 2 teams join the 1st place teams for the championship. Well, we had to close the club for COVID, one of the teams had a crew that tested positive after racing and one club staff tested positive after that. Therefore, the Regatta was canceled, no more racing could be run. Below is the Sis on scoring and the scoring of the regatta.
12. SCORING
12.1. Appendix A will be used.
12.2. Each race will be scored during a session, scores will be calculated to create your place for the day, the finish position on the day will be your score entered in your weekly series score.
12.3. When 5 weekly scores have been completed, a boat’s series score will be the total of her weekly scores excluding her worst score.
12.4. When 8 or more weekly scores have been completed, a boats series score will be the total of her weekly scores excluding her two worst scores.
13. CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFICATION
13.1. The teams finishing first in each session will automatically advance to the Championship.
13.2. Teams finishing second in each division will advance to a sail-off the morning of the championships.
13.3. The top two teams in the sail-off will advance to the championship in the afternoon.
13.4. Two wild card spots will be held by the organizing authority as entry in the sail-off.
 |   | Total | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8
 | Team Sat A | 8 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1
 | Team Sat B | 16 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3
 | Team Sat C | 17 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 5
 | Team Sat D | 20 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4
 | Team Sat E | 23 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 2
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | 
 | Team Sun AM A | 9 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3
 | Team Sun AM B | 11 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 5
 | Team Sun AM C | 12 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1
 | Team Sun AM D | 22 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4
 | Team Sun AM E | 26 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | 
 | Team Sun PM A | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1
 | Team Sun PM B | 10 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2
 | Team Sun PM C | 18 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3
 | Team Sun PM D | 20 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4
 | Team Sun PM E | 23 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5
 
My questions are:
Can and/or should the OA and RC use the session scoring to find and crown a Champion?
Or should they put all the first place (in session) teams on the trophy?
If they can find a single champion, how should that scoring, and tie breaks happen?
The Sat session only got 1 TO, since they lost a day to weather. Therefore, the Sat A team score is higher even though their scores seem much like the Sun PM A team.
 
If needed, I can send the individual race results.
Sorry for the length of the post, thanks in advance for the replies.
Created: 20-Nov-18 22:11

Comments

Juan Ruggero
Nationality: Argentina
Certifications:
  • International Judge
  • National Judge
  • Umpire In Training
0
What does IR say about minimum ran racings to validate the series?
Created: 20-Nov-18 22:35
P
John Allan
Nationality: Australia
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • Regional Race Officer
0
What is the meaning of 'division' in SI 13.2?
Created: 20-Nov-18 22:51
Matt Bounds
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • National Race Officer
0
There's a significant problem in that most of SI12 (except for SI 12.1) and all of SI 13 change Appendix A - yet they do not say so.  This is a breach of RRS 85.1, so they are invalid instructions.
Created: 20-Nov-18 22:59
John Christman
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
  • National Judge
  • National Umpire
0
As there is nothing in the SIs covering how this will be handled, I think the regatta is just over.  There is no way to determine a single 'winner' or even 'co-winners' and the OA/RC should not even try.  Any one of the teams that qualified for the championship day has a valid claim on the top place.  At the beginning of the championship day they are all equally tied as no scores are carried forward from the first stage and there is no way to break the ties.  There is no way a PC could determine what is fairest for all the competitors should anyone request redress.
Created: 20-Nov-18 23:15
Peter Nielsen
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • National Umpire
0
"Divisions" are the sessions.
nothing in the SIs about minimum number of races.
Let's stay away from how bad the SIs are, they were horrible in many ways. 
Created: 20-Nov-18 23:19
Peter Nielsen
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • National Umpire
0
@john, i hear what you are saying, what do you say to all the competitors that say that they have race hard for 8 weeks and nothing comes of it, how sad
Created: 20-Nov-18 23:24
John Christman
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
  • National Judge
  • National Umpire
0
I guess one answer is that the joy comes from the sailing and not the winning.  My next answer would be to shrug my shoulders and ask the sailors what they think is fairest for all.  It would be interesting to hear what they think, but pretty easy to counter their arguments.

I have seen this happen before in team racing where the fleet was split into A & B groups that did individual round robins in the first stage.  This was to be followed by a second stage that took the top and bottom finishers in each group to create Gold and Silver groups that sailed a round robin.  The final stage was the top 3 finishers in Gold plus the top finisher in the Silver group sailing a knock out series.  The SIs said that for this to constitute a regatta and a winner declared 2/3rds of the second stage had to be completed.  We barely got through the first stage and so the regatta was not completed, it was just how things worked out.  Teams had come from all over the West Coast and Hawaii.  Unfortunately, nothing could be done.  Fortunately, the NOR/SI covered the possibility so everyone knew what would happen.  This is the lesson, always think about the 'what ifs' when writing the scoring part of the NOR/SI.
Created: 20-Nov-18 23:53
P
John Allan
Nationality: Australia
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • Regional Race Officer
0
The way the SI structure the event, I don't think it would be fair to award the trophy based on points in the 9 Sessions raced to date.  To do so would advantage the hypothetical good boat that drew a Session with all badly performed boats, gaining a very good score, over a possibly better boat that drew a highly competitive session and had to share podium places with other competitors.

So to get a fair result you have to go through the Sail Off and Final races.

You have raced 9 sessions for all Divisions, abandoned the 10th session for all Divisions and have also abandoned the 6th Session for the Saturday Division.

Unless your SI forbid it, you can reschedule abandoned races when all this COVID stuff is over, or you (the race committee) can leave abandoned races alone and not reschedule them:  the race committee has that discretion.

First, as to the Abandoned Saturday Division session.  You can either:
  • reschedule the abandoned races in the Saturday DIvision session OR
  • abandon the corresponding races in the Sunday Divisions sessions (rule 32.1(d) for any reason affecting the fairness of the competition).
So you will have all your Divisions with either 9 Sessions or all with 8 Sessions, so everyone will get two drops.
I would tend to go for abandoning the Sunday Divisions, because rescheduling a whole Saturday Session will add to the inconvenience and difficulty and it won't affect the number of drops.

You now have an equal number of completed sessions for all Divisions, so you can fairly identify your Divisional First Places to go forward into the Final and your Divisional Second Places to go to the Sail Off.

All that remains is to reschedule and sail the Sail Off and the Finals when it is COVID safe to do so.
Created: 20-Nov-19 10:37
P
Michael Butterfield
Nationality: United Kingdom
Certifications:
  • International Judge
  • International Umpire
  • International Race Officer
0
As there was no championship I do not think the trophy can be allocated.
I would offer some prize to the winners of the groups to reflect their commitment. This is a voluntary gesture.
If you consider the championship SI is flawed you could request redress but this will mean all boats can attend a hearing. The PC may them award the championship to the group winners equally, or as they think fit.
Created: 20-Nov-19 12:41
Peter Nielsen
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • National Umpire
0
Thanks for all the feed back, good points all around.
Created: 20-Nov-19 15:34
Sue Reilly
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • National Umpire
  • Regional Judge
  • Regional Race Officer
0
Why cancelled and not postponed till it can be completed.  Finished a spring frostbite series and Championship last weekend that got put off because of COVID
Created: 20-Nov-21 18:32
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