|
 |
Yachting Australia Corporate Partner
|
|
Yachting Australia
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NATIONAL JUDGES NEWS, Issue 25, June 2006
NATIONAL JUDGES NEWS
25th Issue – May 2006
Distributed by the National Judges’ Sub-Committee of Yachting Australia’s Race Officials’ Committee
STILL MORE ON USING THE IRPCS (ColRegs)
The recent bits in NJ NEWS on using the ColRegs or not at night drew some responses. Perhaps there were some misunderstandings. The situation is:
Racing boat / non-racing vessel in daylight – ColRegs. Always. You cannot change that.
Racing boat / racing boat in daylight – RRS. Always. You cannot change that.
Racing boat / non-racing vessel at night– ColRegs. Always. You cannot change that.
Racing boat / racing boat at night – This is what the recommendation was referring to.
For racing boat / racing boat at night we cannot simply introduce the ColRegs because that would mean things like no class rules, no Special Regulations safety gear, no need to sail the course, and you can use your motor and there are no protests.
Some events try to use a hybrid set of rules by replacing some of the RRS rules with some of the ColRegs rules. Investigation shows that different events have different ideas and so replace different bits, which means these ‘hybrid’ rules will be different at different events.
So the recommendation was to keep using the RRS for racing boat / racing boat at night, but add an extra bit into the sailing instructions.
REGATTA REPORTS
Here are two more interesting items extracted from your Regatta Reports.
MOVING MARKS
Six redress hearings for moving marks while boats were approaching.
What can we say ?
BLACK FLAG
In a black flag start one boat was forced across the line early by another boat which was breaking a rule (no damage). The boat knew she was now in the triangle in the first minute so believing she was now BFD (DSQ without a hearing) she just sailed home. She requested redress, asking for exoneration and quoting Case 65 which says "When a boat knows she has broken the Black Flag rule, she is obliged to retire promptly", but there was nothing the PC could do.
No doubt the Case 65 wording comes from the Basic Principle "when competitors break a rule they will promptly take a penalty, which may be to reitre", but both of these need to be qualified by "except where the boat believes she may be exonerated under rule 64.1(b)"
____________________
