Rule 17.2

[euphoria]

I noticed for the first time a penalty given for breaking rule 17.2 on monday (if you click on the penalty icon, the actual rule will be listed).

Except on a beat to windward, while a boat is less than two of her hull lengths from a leeward boat or a boat clear astern steering a course to leeward of her, she shall not sail below her proper course unless she gybes.

The problem is that it was on a beat to windward... where the rule isn't valid . I don't know if this is a general bug in VSK2 or only for our modified team race courses. The latter may be the case since we use the original seperation top mark as bottom mark. VSK2 may have defined "beat to windward" related to the original marks usage...

Just keep this in mind when you sail low on the beat to slow your opponent or prevent him from tacking.

Harald

[cubenviper]

that is exactly what surprised me when i started playing tr with all of u! it seems that proper course just makes no sense and we can see boats 90° twa upwind and ever downer just to shoot an opponent! the last calls in match even forbid to shoot this way. would team racing be even "wilder"? i think then that results should be given only to addition of points and no with "last boat loses". that 's just a point of view, but it appears to me that it would be fairer for fast boats... cheers,

[The Nude]

when the 17.2 pen was given, i was sailing with a TWA of 36. Thats what i normally sail with.

it seems that proper course just makes no sense and we can see boats 90° twa upwind and ever downer just to shoot an opponent! the last calls in match even forbid to shoot this way. would team racing be even "wilder"?

i don't really understand what you're trying to say here. BTW, if you watch team racing in real life, it's much much much wilder, mainly due to the use of smaller, easier to plane boats.

IMHO, last boat looses is only really any good with just 4 boats (2 per team), but when there are uneven teams, i can't think of a better way to decide a winner. With 5 boats, in training, we give the team with 2 boats 4th place always, but it still isn't fair, what if you are in 1st and 6th (5th). then you have a 1 4 6, which is easy to convert with 4 doing a passback on 5. seeing that boat 4 doesn't exist, he's got a bit of a job to do . When the teams are even though, i think it should always be points.

andy - the nude

[cubenviper]

Andy i forgot to say i didnt know anything about TR before entering ITBYC. I sail a lot everywhere in france and med, but it doesnt seem to be so popular...what i was saying had nothing to do with your pen but just a global feeling. i appreciate TR as long as it is a brand new feeling for me to take care of "partners", but i was a bit surprised by the way of defending team, going up and down, stopping and "marktrapping". you surely know a lot more than me on this subject and i believe it can be tough on real regattas. My pb is that i started to play like match, but obviously things are fairly different, and the example harald gave (17.2) was something that surprised me a lot during the first races. now i just need to learn!!!cheers Andy :beer:

[euphoria]

Philippe, what you say is a pretty good description on how it works for odd numbered fleets, where we are using last boat loose rules. The only important thing is to avoid last position, so the "proper course" isn't very interesting for the boats in the head of the fleet. Especially in the past when we sailed at ordinary courses with a downwind finish. It was pretty easy to obtain a winning combination at the finish as the boat ahead also was in a leeward right of way position. With the new courses however, it's a little different as the boat ahead on the last leg has less control over the boats behind as it's on a beat. You can delay them a little, but not forever as on the old courses. Another good thing with the new courses is that we have less chaos and penalties just before the finish.

On even sized fleets, we are using points scoring, and the games are very different. You won't give up your position to help a team mate, but you would want to use your position ahead to slow down the opponent(s) between you and your team mates, to convert into a winning combination. So this (the real) kind of team racing is more balanced between speed and tactics. But in a social group like this, odd fleets are still great fun!

BTW: I don't understand what this has got to do with rule 17.2 :laugh:

Harald

[Aeolus]

Harald / Andy:
Am I correct in saying that if I'm in first place going upwind towards the finish line I can bear off or go back to sit on 2nd places wind to slow him down. This is something that we do at the club which I thought was perfertly legal until reading the above comments.

Tony

[euphoria]

Yes, you are 100% correct. It's perfectly legal. I created this topic only to warn you about the fact that VSK2 is wrong about rule 17.2, so you might get a penalty (category 1...) if you sail too close to your opponent as windward boat heading below proper course on a upwind leg.

Harald

[admiral 1]

Harald, i could be wrong, but in hobbs bay isn't the last leg up actually a downwind leg? as in crossing the finish from windward to leeward,the whole leg is seen as from ww to lw?
Or was this on a real upwind leg?

I can only recall 17.2 in affect on downwind legs never saw it on upwind legs....

BTW: on Rule 18 i do have the feeling that the judge just can't keep up, as in there's no judgement as the situations develop faster then the judge can asses them. (i believe concerning sides have to agree on a situation to validate it's judgement)

Otherwise it seems that leafing the Zone either is defined by the first part (the bow or any other part) leafing the zone, as oposed to the last part leafing the zone, or the last part crossing a line perpandicular to the course to the next mark through the rounded mark. R 18 seaces to be applied after that.
Would be nice to get some confirmation on either.

[euphoria]

Yes Theo, that was what I tried to say in the first message. That this ruling may only be a result of the fact that our upwind leg is a downwind leg in the VSK2 umpire world.

Harald

[CAN Knot]

Just keep this in mind when you sail low on the beat to slow your opponent or prevent him from tacking.

Actually, I came across a definition of "beat to windward" that may explain why you got a penalty for 17.2 on an "upwind leg". I always wondered why R18.1b included the phrase either on a beat to windward or when the proper course for one or both of them to round or pass the mark or obstruction is to tack.... How could your proper course be to tack if you weren't on a beat to windward?!? Of course I can't find it at the moment, but I found a defintion that said, "you are on a beat to windward when you are sailing closehauled". If VSK uses the same defintion and you are sailing below closehauled VSK2 could be applying R17.2.

The Team Racing Call book includes a definition (call D9) that says:

A boat is on a beat to windward when her proper course is to sail no lower than closehauled.

If a boat is sailing towards the windward mark and is clearly well above the lay-line
because she has over-stood it, or because of a windshift, she is no longer on a beat to
windward.

However, I could have sworn I found the first, more general, definition in the 2001-2003 ISAF case book. In either case, it would seem that just because it's a windward leg does not guarantee that you are on a beat to windward!

[euphoria]

You don't need a better definition than that, Keith

But I don't think VSK takes this into consideration (it has problems adopting the basic rules...). The incident where Philippe got a 17.2 penalty was BTW not outside the laylines, so he should not have been penalized for 17.2. He sailed very low as far as I remember, so you can probably avvoid the bug by not overdoing the bearing away...

Harald