Here Come the Judge
Largs Sailing Club 3 & 4 April 2004
This note is intended to give sailors some feedback � from the judges perspective - on the sailing at Largs.��
Lets start off with the number of judges on the water.� We had three judges and three RIBS.� We tried to be positioned to see the start well.� Then following the fleet to watch out for breaches of Rule 42 plus keeping judges positioned at marks to take notes of any rounding incidents.��
Looking at Rule 42 � there were two yellow flag protests.
�The first was sculling on the start line.� The second an ooching/pumping combination.�
Sculling is very easy for a judge to see on the start line.� And the trouble is that if a 420 has lost way and perhaps is trapped between other boats in the last 10 � 30 seconds before the start it is only too easy to slam the tiller over a few times to get way on and extricate the boat from a tricky situation.� But unless there is a clear change of direction that is artificial propulsion.� And it got a flag.
The second yellow flag was interesting from a judging viewpoint in that one judge saw the incident from the right hand side of the downwind leg and went round the leeward mark to follow up.� Another judge separately witnessed it from the windward side of the reach and came across to blow the whistle.�� Pumping /ooching/rocking type situations can sometimes be seen from quite a distance. There is often a noticeable difference in the boats motion and the crew movement relative to other boats.���
�If you want to mull over the rule 42 interpretations have a look at the article of page 21 of the latest 'On the Wire', or the RYA website at
There were two starts with some start line congestion and minor collisions.�� But the collisions seemed accidental.� One issue was that of a 420 hitting a capsized yacht � answer rule 21 applies.
There weren�t any protests at all.�� There were a couple of situations which were witnessed by judges and where if there had been a protest there may have been some changes to the results.��
We had our National Judges conference a few weeks ago and the theme running throughout the weekend was that of making sailing fair � and fun.�� And the point really is that the rules are written by sailors for sailors. If people don�t follow the rules it is unfair and it certainly isn�t fun.�� They are your rules.�
See you in Plymouth.
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