Laser Frostbiting with Dave Perry

The last time I sailed with the Newport Laser frostbite fleet (aka Fleet 413) was on December 20. We enjoyed a special treat on that day because we had racing rules guru Dave Perry give us a seminar on the Racing Rules before sailing. Then we did our normal racing and Dave came out in a motorboat to shoot some video of us. After racing, Dave gave us a debrief using some of the video from our racing to illustrate various points about the Racing Rules and tactics and other good stuff.

A guru - not Dave Perry

So it's now 40 days since I last went sailing and I am getting a serious case of cabin fever.

A cabin

There have been a few weekends in the last few weeks when there was no sailing at all by the fleet on account of circumstances beyond our control like Christmas, gale force winds and heavy rain, winds in the 20s and temps in the 20s, or other such nonsense.

Fleet captain checking whether it is OK to sail this week

And then on the weekends when there was some sailing I wimped out on account of the dreaded man cold or the dreaded twisted ankle from falling over in the kitchen (how did that happen?) or other such nonsense.

I have been reduced to writing blog posts about such fascinating topics as squeezing a pimple, gasometers,  and Strictly Come Dancing. Blame the cabin fever.

Strictly Come Dancing

What Laser sailing is like according to Steve Cockerill

So let's get back to some real sailing again.

My performance when racing on that Sunday before Christmas was about the same as every other week I sailed this season.

• One fairly good race, when I managed to find a clear lane not too long after the start, play the shifts and the puffs more or less correctly, and arrive at the windward mark with the Laser sailing rock stars.


• A couple of bad races when I got totally blown away on the start line and spent most of the first beat gasping for air on account of the 40 or 50 Lasers in front of me.


• A couple of races where I arrived at the starboard tack layline simultaneously with the majority of the other 40 or 50 Lasers, tacked on what I thought was the layline, only to discover because of the tide or a big lefty shift or not being able to judge the layline properly or other such nonsense that I wasn't going to be able to lay the mark, and having to gybe around and go back down the line of 40 or 50 boats to try and find a gap to tack through which usually was between the boats who were 47th and 48th in the race. Ugly!

Here for your amusement are a couple of Dave Perry's videos.

The first is from my only good race that day. Dave used this video of a leeward mark rounding to teach us about communication at the mark.  That's me in 157812 rounding in the company of sailors who usually finish way ahead of me. I think I scored a 5th in this race

And here is a windward mark rounding. Dave used this video to explain why it is better to overstand than to tack short of the layline in a crowded fleet. If you look carefully you can see me in the middle distance bailing out when I realize I won't lay the mark and going the wrong way to try and find a gap between the 47th and 48th boats or something. 

Have a good laugh at my expense.

You're welcome!

The Best Racing Advice in Six Words

If you only had six words to pass on some advice about sailboat racing to a new racer, what would they be?

For example, the first answer that springs to my mind when faced with this question would be the somewhat cynical...

"Win the start. Extend your lead."

But I am sure you can do much better than that.

Please leave your answer in the comments to this post.

---

This post was inspired by the post The Best Cruising Advice in Six Words on Windtraveler the excellent cruising blog about that "estrogen-rich family" Brittany, Scott, Isla, Haven and Mira. (The estrogen quote is theirs, not mine.)

That post was inspired by a recent New York Times contest calling for parenting advice in "six words or less" which was, itself, inspired by the book The Best Advice in Six Words: Writers Famous and Obscure on Love, Sex, Money, Friendship, Family, Work, and Much More.

Is that what they call a "meme?" Whatever they call it, please participate, and leave your answer in the comments.

Racing advice in six words.

First thing that comes into your head.

Now.

---

This challenge is a little reminiscent of the group writing projects we used to run on this blog.

For example in 2008 I asked people to write blog posts or articles on the theme of Best Sailing Innovation Ever which received 25 entries.

A couple of years later we turned that one on its head and had a group writing project on Worst Sailing Innovation Ever which had 28 entries.

Wurst - Worst. Get it?

Some of our group writing projects have had even more entries than that.

But today's challenge is a lot easier than writing a whole article.

Just six words.

Six words of racing advice.

How hard is that?

Please leave your answer in the comments.

Your name - or nom de plume - would be nice too.

"Nom de plume" is French for "name of pen."  Some stupid name you make up if you don't people to know who you are and, really, who could blame you.

Where was I?

Where am I?

Oh yes. Six words of racing advice.

Submit more than one idea if you feel like it.

In the comments to this post.

Now.

---

I don't know what I will do with all the answers.

Probably put them all in a separate post.

Maybe organize them into categories.

Perhaps use some of the best ideas as jumping off points to write some of my own blog posts, full of insane rambling and half-remembered reminiscences about races in which I used - or failed to use - your advice.

I'm not in this video but it does cover a situation which is pretty typical of my own racing career.

I really do need your advice.

Rules Quiz - Outside Help

If a racing sailor receives information from someone else during a race has he infringed the Rule against receiving outside help?

The question came up in a friendly discussion among the Laser and Aero sailors after the finish of one race yesterday.

It seems the courses we sail most often at the club are W4 and W5. As you can see from the club sailing instructions a W4 course has a downwind finish and W5 has an upwind finish. On Sunday we were sailing W4.

Actually the diagrams in SIs don't tell the whole story because we also use W4 when we have the start/finish line in the middle of the course. Everyone knows (at least I thought we all knew) that this means start-1-2-1-finish. A downwind finish. The number indicates the number of legs, not the number of laps.



This is what happened on Sunday. The Aeros and Lasers were racing together (as usual.) The first boat - an RS Aero - crossed the line going downwind on the second run and was given a finish horn. (Modesty prevents me from naming the sailor.) A little while later the next two boats approached the finish line. One sailed outside the line and continued downwind towards the leeward mark. The third boat was clearly sailing a course which would take him outside the pin. So the winner of the race, being a kind, friendly person, hailed his two friends and told them it was a downwind finish. #2 came back and #3 changed course and they crossed the finish line downwind as required.



Then the discussion started...

1. Was the information received from another sailor against the Rule against Outside Help?

2. Even if it were legal in these circumstances, would it have been illegal in other circumstances?

3. Would it have been OK for the Race Committee to advise the sailors verbally of the correct course once they noticed that they appeared to be sailing the wrong course?

4. Would it have been OK for the Race Committee to answer a sailor's question if he had asked the RC if he was on the last leg of course and was approaching the finish?

Here is the relevant Rule. Other Rules may also apply of course.

What do you think?



And just because I like it, here is the video again of me (in the RS Aero 7) crossing the finish line of a W4 course at the club RS Aero/ Laser/ Sunfish regatta at the end of May. It was a little windier that day.



In the interests of full disclosure I should reveal that I was also suffering from course amnesia in the race in the video and was initially planning to sail outside the line and keep on going downwind towards the leeward mark. But I realized at the last minute that I should cross the finish line (maybe I saw the course board - duh!) and headed up to a broad reach to cross the line.

PS Apparently this video is one of the most watched videos on the MYCSunfish Fleet YouTube channel - (is that the right word?) but there's a lot of other good stuff there too, so head over there now and SUBSCRIBE!!!



I love this club.

I love my RS Aero.

I love this video (even if the caption is slightly misleading.)

No, I love this video because the caption is slightly misleading.

Three Flavors of RS Aero

The RS Aero comes in three flavors - 5, 7 and 9.

The numbers refer to the approximate sail area of each rig in square meters.

Each rig has a different sail area and a different length bottom mast section.

So you can have whichever flavor - or sail area-  suits you best.

As you can see, RS Sailing suggest that you should chose a rig based on your weight. On their website they also sum this up in a slightly different way, saying that the rig options will typically suit…

RS Aero 5 - youths

RS Aero 7 - women and small men

RS Aero 9 - men



Uh oh. Here we go again.

If you are a manly man you will want the RS Aero 9.

A manly man

It's just like the Laser and the Laser Radial. As my friend Yarg of Apparent Wind so eloquently wrote in  - Why Manly Men Never Use a Radial Sail - there's no way a manly man would want to sail a Radial or an Aero 7 rig. Those are for girls, right?

As it turns out… wrong. Very wrong.



Back in last March when I placed what was apparently the first Aero order from North America, I ordered it with the 9 rig. I was hovering a bit over 200lbs at the time and based on what I read on the website it seemed that that was the rig for me.

But then George Yioulis of West Coast Sailing went over to England to try out the RS Aero and came back saying he was advising his customers that even men of my size should initially buy the 7 rig. And when I went to Minorca Sailing in September I tried both the 9 rig and the 7 rig and came to much the same conclusion.

A much better looking sailor than me 

in an RS Aero at Minorca Sailing

The 7 rig was enough of a challenge for me in strong winds. On the other hand the extra sail area of the 9 rig was a delight in lighter winds.

So I decided to buy both the 7 and 9 rigs.

Yum - 2 flavors in one pie

My two fellow sailors in the Boston Aero Fleet also ended up buying two rigs. Yarg, who weight is in the recommended range for the 7 rig anyway, opted to buy the 7 rig with a 5 rig for those heavy air days. And the Email Dude, whose weight is somewhere between mine and Yarg's bought a 7 and 9 rig like me.



So then we were faced with the decision as to how to race these rigs. There isn't really any handicap racing at our host club, so at our winter planning meeting - at Mick Morgan's Irish Pub - we all agreed that for racing we would use the 7 rigs (at least initially) so we were on a level playing field. At least I think that's what we agreed. It was very noisy and I had lost count of how many pints of Guinness I had had by then.

While we were pondering how we would use the 5 and 9 rigs, the Class Rules for the RS Aero were published and they addressed the issue of how Aeros would be raced,  but when it came to the rules for swapping rigs they had us scratching our heads.

The rules say that the Aeros should be raced as separate fleets by rig size 5, 7 and 9 "where numbers permit" and that otherwise they should race using Portsmouth Handicaps.

Fair enough. But the next rule had us puzzled.

So Yarg could swap to his 5 rig if we were sailing a handicap series (which we are not.)  So if it was really nuking and he was totally overpowered in his 7 rig, the rule seems to imply that he couldn't sail his 5 rig because we were essentially doing fleet racing of 7 rigs. That seemed a little weird.

The second part of rule C.1.4. is even weirder. You can switch to a bigger rig but you rank as a "new entry."  A (perhaps unintended) consequence of this rule has already come into play in a series in the UK. There are 4 events in the series with best 2 scores counting. So you could sail a 7 rig in the first event, switch up to a 9 rig for 2 of the subsequent events, and sail the 7 rig in one of the subsequent events. You would then count as 2 entries with 2 scores for each. So you could actually be both first and second in the same series??? How does that make sense?

None of this made it any easier to figure out what our local rig-swapping rules, if any, should be.



In the end it was moot.

At our first regatta - the First RS Aero Regatta in USA East of the Continental Divide - it was really nuking. Well it was quite windy. We all started in 7 rigs but Yarg did capsize a few times. I know he capsized because in every race in the morning on one of the downwind legs I heard a big splash behind me and someone cursing a lot.

At lunchtime, Yarg switched down to the 5 rig and I didn't hear any more splashing or cursing in the afternoon. In fact he seemed to be doing really well on the first beat of every race in the afternoon but then his 5 rig seemed to lose distance to the 7s in the rest of the race. So we didn't need to protest him under Rule C.1.4. in the end. (Only joking Yarg.)



Of course that opened the floodgates.

If  a lighter sailor can switch down a rig in the heavy stuff, then it must be OK for a heavy sailor to switch up in the light stuff? Right?

OK. I know it's debatable. We have debated it a lot in my other class. In fact the old geezers in my other class debated it so much that we now have a rig-swapping rule for North American Laser Masters regattas that, as far as I know, nobody else in the Laser class in the world uses.

In any case, when the three of us raced in the Wednesday evening multi-class pursuit race last week I told Yarg I would like to use my 9 rig, just to see what would happen. If we don't test out these different rigs we never will figure out whether and how we can race them together. The Email Dude opted for a 9 rig too. So we started together, one 7 rig and two 9 rigs.

The other two Aero sailors got better starts than me so I was playing catch-up all the way up the first beat. As I recall, Yarg was leading at the first mark. I had a good downwind leg and gained the lead. On the second upwind, the first boat chasing us, a Flying Scot caught, up with us. I led the Aeros down the second downwind but the Scot rounded ahead of us at the leeward mark. Yarg, close behind me,went right on the short final beat, so I went the same way to cover him. The Email Dude went left, got a lucky shift and gained on us. We converged at the finish line. It was almost a tie. We finished within a second of each other, with the Email Dude in second (after the Scot), me third and Yarg fourth.

So what does that prove?

The 7 and 9 rigs are actually the same speed in light air?

Or, perhaps, more likely, a 160lb sailor in a 7 rig is as fast as a 195 lb sailor in a 9 rig in light air?

We should just sail the rigs that suit our weight and we will have even racing?

If only I had got a better start I would have won the race?

Yarg is a much better sailor than Email Dude and me?

All of the above?



More research is indicated.

Three things I do know…

I do love pursuit races.

I am so glad I bought this boat.

I am so glad I joined this club.

Random Things I Am Thankful For This Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for…

My sailing friends 

especially the ones who drove 

down from Massachusetts so many times 

to train with me in Rhode Island this year

The RS Aero 

perhaps the best new singlehanded sailing boat 

since the Laser

Cup-holders on boats 

The winter solstice

Trapezoid courses

Form N-400

MagSafe

Snow

My blog readers 

especially those of you who 

take the trouble to leave a comment 

or send me an email

Waking up

Sunrises

Mangoes

Papayas

Marley

Rum

 especially rum after sailing 

The farmers, growers, fishers, brewers, and winemakers 

of New England 

The Oxford comma 

The Final Beat

IEEE 802.11

Rule 43.1(a) 

Command-Shift-4

The Leinster Burger 

at Aidan's Pub 

Beer 

especially beer after sailing 

All the people who work in restaurants and bars and pubs 

Even More Extreme Sudoku

by

Antoine Alary 

Six little people

Collision Avoidance and Offset Marks

Many of you have probably already seen this video of a port-starboard collision at the recent E-Scow Nationals, but I haven't sen much discussion about it online. So here's my take on the situation and what we can learn from it and how such situations might be avoided in future.

As always, all opinions are my own and may be ill-informed, confused, or even downright wrong. So feel to disagree and abuse me in the comments if you are so inclined.



So what do we have here?

A large fleet.

A crowded windward mark rounding.

Boats on starboard bearing away on to a run and raising their spinnakers, while port tackers further down the fleet are still racing upwind towards the windward mark and are crossing the path of the starboard tack boats.

And one of the port tackers collides with a starboard tacker.

It's one of the most dangerous parts of the race course. Everyone knows that port should give way to starboard in this situation, but it's complicated by the facts that the starboard tackers are changing course and the the crew of the starboard tackers are probably busier than they are at any other time on the race course. It's bad enough on the Laser... sheeting out, pulling up the board, releasing the outhaul, maybe resetting the vang if you released it too much at the windward mark, catching the first wave… and I suspect it's even worse on a boat with a spinnaker. So sometimes the starboard tacker doesn't have their eyes out of the boat enough, and the port tacker may see the starboard tacker but isn't sure exactly when she is going to turn and how sharply. I've seen a similar incident in a Laser fleet which put the starboard tack sailor in the hospital.



So what can be done to avoid these collisions?



Options for the sailors

Under Rule 10, the obligation is clearly on the port tackers to keep clear. What options do they have? Slow down, head up, bear away, or tack I suppose.

Bearing way is certainly an option but you had better do it soon enough to be able to pass cleanly ahead of the starboard tacker. The port tack boat in the video tried to bear away but was too late. Tacking wouldn't usually be necessary or even advisable so close to the lay line. Slowing down or heading up are the best possibilities I suppose for avoiding one starboard tacker. But what if there is a whole parade of starboard tackers, as there is in this incident? Do you luff up and wait for them all to pass? You might wait for the whole fleet. Or do you choose a likely looking gap and go for it? It can be a tough choice.

The real lesson is that port tackers should really anticipate this situation and not put themselves in the situation of having to cross a crowd of starboard tackers bearing away to the downwind leg so close to the mark. It's a bit like the old joke about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies, "Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here."



And the starboard tack boats are not entirely immune from the responsibility to avoid a collision. Rule 16.1 says, "When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear." So if a starboard tack boat wishing to bear away sees a port tacker approaching, sailing in a straight line course that would cross to leeward of the starboard tacker if she maintained her course, the latter can't just bear away in front of the port tacker and immediately claim right of way under Rule 10. She has to give the port tacker room to keep clear.

Not that I'm saying that the starboard tacker in this incident changed course in such a way that she infringed Rule 16. But if the port tacker were so minded she could certainly argue a case under Rule 16 in the protest room.

It is interesting that the two starboard tack boats rounding the mark after the one involved in the collision chose to sail high to avoid another port tacker rather than bearing away in front of it. That may have been for strategic reasons (wanting to sail on that side of the downwind leg) but it was probably also smart tactics to avoid any risk of getting tangled up with the port tacker.



Options for the race committee

OK. So I hope we can all agree that having a bunch of port tack close-hauled boats sailing into a bunch of starboard tack boats trying to bear away and raise spinnakers is a situation fraught with risks of collision. The classic race management solution to avoid this problem is to lay an offset mark to define a short reaching leg for the boats after the rounding the windward mark. Then when they do round the offset mark and start to bear away they will be several boat lengths to windward of the port tack lay line and so when the the boats going downwind meet the port tackers they will be settled on their downwind course and not trying to make dramatic changes of course.

It's a good idea and it has its merits. But there is an offset mark in this incident. And still the port tackers are tangling with the starboard tackers as they are bearing away to start the downwind leg.

So what went wrong? Why are the port tackers so close to the offset mark?

Let's be generous and assume that the race committee placed the offset mark correctly (although that doesn't always happen.) Maybe the port tackers overstood the layline? Or perhaps there was a big left shift late in the race? Whatever the reason, this offset mark clearly isn't preventing the problem it was designed to solve.

I have heard talk this year of a different race management solution. Instead of the conventional offset mark defining a short reaching leg, place a mark a few boat lengths directly downwind from the windward mark with the idea that port tackers on the beat must pass it to leeward. (Not sure exactly what language you would use in the SIs to achieve this. No boat on the windward leg may cross the line between the windward mark and the offset mark?)

It sounds as if this variation of the offset mark would achieve the aim of keeping boats approaching on the port tack layline away from boats in the process of rounding the mark and bearing away, as the port tack layline would essentially be the layline to this new "offset" mark.

Has anybody heard of a race committee trying this option? Any experience or views on how well it would work?



And now over to you. Have you been involved in situations like this? Have you seen, or been involved in, similar collisions? What is your plan when you are the starboard tacker or the port tacker? Do we need any changes in the Rules to help make this part of the race course more safe? Are there other things race management can do?

Pocono Pirates

Last week for Throwback Thursday we had a photo quiz. I knew it was of the winners at a Sailing Association of North Jersey Lakes (SANJL) Junior Regatta but it took a bit of detective work by some of my smart readers to help me remember the names of all the sailors and even the year of the regatta. Turns out it was 1996.

This week Tillerwoman and I have been rummaging among the shoeboxes of old photos in the basement and we managed to unearth some photos of an even earlier SANJL Junior Regatta... in 1992.

This event was at Deer Lake which is a tiny puddle of a lake, a few miles north of Mountain Lakes in New Jersey, the town where we lived from 1989 to 2007.  When I moved there, my sons and I brought with us from England one Laser and two Optimists and we sailed them for a while in the Open Fleet at Mountain Lakes Sailing Association, but over time we all realized that most of the action at MLSA was in Sunfish and so all three of us took up Sunfish sailing.

SANJL is an organization that runs four senior regattas a year at various lakes around North Jersey, and (in those days) one Junior Regatta a year. In 1992, my friend Steve Manson encouraged a number of Mountain Lakes kids, including my sons, to come to the SANJL Junior Regatta at Deer Lake. As I recall, Steve lent my elder son his own boat but I don't remember whether all seven or eight Mountain Lakes kids who appear in my photos of that day were actually racing or whether some were just there to spectate and cheer on their friends.

So here is a photo of the racing action. Yes, the winds were pretty light. And that's me in the green polo shirt and sunglasses working on how to sit with bad posture and eventually trigger many episodes of lower back pain in later years. It was a typical day of North Jersey Sunfish racing except for one thing. This was a date which will live in infamy and the old salts still talk in incredulous tones of how it went down.

The first unusual thing was that, along with the usual contingent of parents with kids, a TEAM of kids showed up from Pennsylvania. With a COACH. And a trailer full of SIX Sunfish. From the next frigging state. It was unheard of.

But the day started in good spirits and everyone was cool and all the kids were having fun. After a few races it became apparent that the winner of the day was either going to be Tiller Extension #1 or one particular kid from the TEAM with a COACH from frigging PENNSYLVANIA. It was probably all going to be decided by which of the two sailed the best in the final race (although I don't recall the actually points situation.)

Anyway the kids were all drifting around in their boats on the other side of the lake in the final race. It was hard to see what was really going on but it looked to me as if Tiller Extension #1 was buried in the middle of the fleet and was not well positioned to win the regatta.

And then it happened. One of the kids from the TEAM with a COACH from frigging PENNSYLVANIA (not the one who had a chance to win) dove off his boat, swam across to the boat of Tiller Extension #1, got hold of that boat's mast and capsized it!!!!   OMG! WTF! Did that really just happen? We couldn't believe our eyes. (Did we even know what OMG and WTF meant in 1992?)

After Tiller Extension #1 had righted his boat he was so far back in the fleet that he had no chance to win the regatta and it looked like the winner would be the kid from the TEAM with a COACH from frigging PENNSYLVANIA (not the one who perpetrated the pirate attack to help his friend.)

But my friend Steve came to the rescue. Tiller Extension #1 wouldn't have known what to do on his own and in those days I don't think I would have known either. I wasn't party to the hearing but apparently Steve let them have it with Rule 2 and Rule 69.2c and Rule 62.1d or words to that effect and Tiller Extension #1 was awarded average points for that race which was enough for him to win the regatta.

Which is why I now have this photo of him holding the ginormous SANJL Junior Trophy as the 1992 SANJL Junior Champion.




Tiller Extension #2 is the little kid to the champions' right looking at the trophy and his big brother with admiring eyes and thinking, "I'm going to win that DAMN GINORMOUS THING myself one day!" (And he did.)

Is it my imagination or is #2 also holding a trophy in his left hand? Maybe he was first Midget (as we politically incorrectly used to call even more junior juniors in those days.)

Anyway the COACH of the TEAM from frigging PENNSYLVANIA did come over and apologize to us but I don't believe that the kid who launched the pirate attack did. Maybe he learned his lesson. It's entirely possible that his team-mate might have won the regatta if the race had been allowed to take its course. I hope the coach used the incident to teach his kids some lessons about sportsmanship.



I continued to be involved with the SANJL Junior Regattas for over a dozen years as a parent, a coach (yes, I really did take a TEAM from frigging MOUNTAIN LAKES to these regattas in later years) and a regatta organizer. But I never again saw an incident of such bad sportsmanship ever again. Kids who sail are basically good kids and a pleasure to work with. At least that's been my experience.

Tie Breaker

There was a regatta last weekend.

It was a national championship.

The scores of the top two boats were…

A.  4 1 1 2 2 1
B.  1 2 2 1 1 2

The NOR said…

The low Point Scoring System, RRS Appendix A, will apply, modified ... as follows:
If five (5) or fewer races are completed, all scores shall be counted. If six (6) races are completed, a boat’s worst score shall be dropped.

Who won. A or B?

Do you think this is a fair outcome?

Discuss.

Do not attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.

Bonus points for revealing what the crew of the non-winning boat did next.

Masters Enjoy Virgins

Masters Enjoy Virgins.

Yes, that really was the headline for this article in the Spring 1992 issue of the North American Laser Class newsletter, The Laser Sailor.

It's an account of a Laser Masters Regatta held at the Bitter End Yacht Club in the British Virgin Islands in Thanksgiving week of 1991.

Somehow I missed out on this regatta. BEYC is one of my favorite places but I didn't go there until 1994. And I'm not sure this particular regatta was ever run again.

The designer of the Laser Bruce Kirby sailed in this regatta, as did Laser legend Dick Tillman.

That same issue of The Laser Sailor had lots of other items that are now of historical interest...

The class was considering whether to pursue the idea of the Laser becoming an Olympic class. I wonder how that turned out?

One of the events on the District 7 (New England) calendar was the Atlantic Coast Championships at Wianno YC on Cape Cod preceded by "Mastermania" a clinic for masters only, run by Brad Dellenbaugh. I went to the clinic and the regatta and remember that Brad told me I did excellent gybes. (I think I have gone downhill since then.) That was probably the first time I met that guy, John Bentley, my sailing nemesis, who sadly passed away in December 2012.

There was an article bemoaning the introduction of the "silly rope tricks" Laser boom vang - not because it was so awful (at least when compared to our current vangs) but because it marked the end of the era of the "knee-to-boom boomvang cracker" a trick that all Laser sailors prior to then had had to try and learn.

And there was this Rules Quiz…

It is Throwback Thursday.

A little Laser nostalgia is allowed.

Three Things

Three of my favorite sailing blog posts from the last few days….


Why People Don’t Protest Each Other (and Why They Should) from Damian at The Final Beat.
One of my own personal beefs. The title explains perfectly the topic of this post. And Damian has some excellent suggestions for dealing with the issue.


The fear of sailing from John Vigor's Blog.
I've written a few posts myself over the years about the fear of sailing and how to deal with it, mainly in the context of heavy air sailing in Lasers. John addresses it from the perspective of ocean cruising and discusses why fear makes sailing attractive to some people and what its uses might be.


Top 10 signs it's time to leave the island by Behan on Sailing with Totem.
Absolutely hilarious. Behan and her family are sailing the world on S/V Totem and have been parked in Langkawi in Malaysia for a while. Actually I think they have only been there for a couple of months but you wouldn't guess if you only read this post!


Enjoy!

Request Permission to Come Aboard Sir

Scoring Experiment

I see that at the ISAF World Cup racing in Miami this week, the organizers are experimenting with a slightly different scoring system for the Laser and Laser Radial Classes. The winner of each race is given a zero score - instead of one point. All other places are unchanged, i.e. 2nd place boat gets 2 points, 3rd place gets 3 points and so on.

I can only guess that the reason is to give a "bonus" to the sailor who actually wins each race?

Back in the day when I first started racing, the standard system was to give the winner of each race three-quarters of a point. This functioned as a sort of a tie-breaker because, for example, a first and a third place would be a better score (by a quarter of a point) than two second places. Although I think the current tie-breaker system is mathematically equivalent in all realistic scenarios I can imagine.

Any idea why it was decided to experiment in this way?

What do you think of it?

Yay! I Love Pain!

I have said before here, only half jokingly, that Laser sailing is mainly about pain.

It's certainly true that the ability to hike hard, even when your quads are screaming at you to stop, is key to upwind performance in medium to strong winds. A very famous Laser sailor once told me that if it hurts it means you are hiking properly. If it doesn't hurt you're not hiking hard enough.

Our sport is not unique in that respect. Runners and cyclists and rowers all take pride in their ability to push through the pain barrier.



Anna Railton who writes a blog called Something about rowing...? is a rower and a cyclist. A very good rower in fact. She was a member of the Cambridge women's crew that beat Oxford in the Women's Boat Race this year. A lot of her posts explore the subject of pain, often with hilarious cartoons of her competing while saying things to herself like "Suffer Harder," and "Oh Jesus Fucking Christ why will this not end?" and "FUCK YOUUUUUUUU LEGS." That's exactly the kind of things I feel like saying to myself when racing a long hard beat in a Laser race.

Captain JP left a sly comment on Anna's last post of this ilk saying...

Congrats! (and go Cambridge) but hmmmm.... I'm seeing a link between rowing and cycling and its pain. On a completely unconnected note, have you read "Fifty shades of grey"?

Fifty Shades of Grey, for those who have been living under a rock for the last few months, is a novel that is very popular among women of a certain age. As Wikipedia puts it

Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic novel by British author E. L. James... It is notable for its explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of sexual practices involving bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM).

BDSM?

Masochism?

What is JP implying? That Anna's passion for sports that require enduring some element of pain to succeed is in some way derived from the pleasure that masochists gain from subjecting themselves to pain?

Heavy stuff. Is he saying that all runners and rowers and cyclists - and Laser sailors - are masochists at heart?

Do you need to enjoy the pain in some way in order to be able to tolerate it?



Anna wrote a post called Rowing: The Rules which she had adapted from a similar set of rules for cycling and which I, in turn, plagiarized to create Laser Sailing: The Rules.

All three versions glorify the idea that being a participant in each sport is all about being a badass who can tough it out and endure the pain longer and harder than the competition. Some of the rules in the Laser Sailing version, for example, are...

#4 You sail a Laser because you like pain. The sooner you appreciate this fact, the happier you'll be.

#5 Harden The Fuck Up. You should not need telling again. 

#33 Display your Laser sailing injuries with pride. 



I'm confused about all this. Am I supposed to enjoy pain? Learn to ignore it? Embrace it? Or just swear at my fucking legs?

In line with long-standing tradition on this blog, I think I would rather follow the maxim: If in doubt, make fun of it.

There is a very funny Twitter account called Fifty Sheds of Grey which is a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey. It's described as Erotica for the not-too-modern male. Most of the tweets start off making you think you are in a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey but end up making you realize that this is just a tweet by some not-too-modern bloke with a grey shed.

Here are some of my favorites....

Each firm stroke was bringing me closer and closer to that moment of relief and satisfaction. Soon my shed would be completely weatherproof.

'Don't hold back,' she cried, as I tied her to the chair, 'I want to feel real pain.' 'Alright,' I said, putting on my Best of Top Gear DVD.

'I'm so wet,' she purred, squirming, 'You know what to do . .' I certainly did - I went straight to B&Q and got a dehumidifier for the shed.

'You're making me so hot,' she breathed. 'I know,' I said, 'Maybe the shed wasn't the best place for a barbecue.'

After that weekend in the shed, I never saw her again. She wasn't looking for a relationship - she was just DIY-curious.

Where was I? Where am I?

Oh yes. Laser sailing and pain.

Funny how blog posts end up sometimes.

Cartoon originally from Anna Railton's blog post Rowing: The Rules

Tie-Breaker

Two sailors had the following scores in a seven race series with one throwout allowed.


Sailor A    4   4   3   4   2   2   2
Sailor B    2   2   2   2   8  16   1


After the throwout each sailor had 17 points.

Which sailor had the most consistent series? Which sailor had the worst individual races? Which sailor won the tiebreaker under the current Racing Rules of Sailing?

This is not some theoretical exercise. These are real results from a regatta sailed this week.

Three Laser Classes?

I've had a suspicion for some time that something weird was going on with the Laser builders and trademark owners. There was a mysterious ad on Scuttlebutt Europe last summer from an outfit called Global Sailing "looking for enthusiastic and well established marine dealers to become national or multi national distributors in the European region for the Bruce Kirby designed Olympic Sailing Dinghy." They were obviously talking about the Laser, and I thought there already was a Laser builder for Europe, Laser Performance Europe. What was that all about? There were some other cryptic comments on forums and in meeting minutes that made me suspect something was afoot too.

Now it's all out in the open. The Laser International Class announced today a proposed class rule change to the Fundamental Rule. That's really serious. The Fundamental Rule basically says a Laser is a Laser and you can't mess with it. Apparently there's a dispute as to who really has the rights to build Lasers for most of the world and there's a real danger that the Laser Class may split three ways and even lose its Olympic status.

Holey moley! It's a good thing this news wasn't announced on Friday (April 1) else nobody would believe it.

The current class rules currently say that a builder of legal Lasers must have "a building agreement from Bruce Kirby or Bruce Kirby Inc." (Bruce Kirby is the original designer of the Laser.) According to the International Laser Class Association (ILCA) website "a dispute has arisen between parties who claim to be representing Kirby’s interests: a New Zealand company called Global Sailing; and Laser Performance Europe (LPE), one of the manufacturers, which holds the Laser trademark rights for Europe, South America, Africa and Asia... The dispute centers on whether a valid 'design rights holder' agreement exists with LPE... Each of the parties to the conflict has threatened ILCA in various ways – Global Sailing has said it may form a new class association for a 'Kirby Sailboat.' LPE informed the ILCA that it intends to form its own 'Laser' class. We may therefore end up with three different classes and may lose the Olympic status."

My head is spinning.

The announcement goes on to say that because of this conflict "there may not be a sufficient quantity of new Laser boats compliant with the ILCA Class Rules available in Europe and other countries in 2011 and beyond to satisfy the demand of its current and future ILCA members."

OMG. This is serious.

The class proposes fixing the problem by changing the definition of what constitutes a legal Laser builder, and is asking class members to vote to approve the change.

This is complicated. The announcement leaves a lot of questions unanswered, Not least, who is Global Sailing and how did they come to be "representing Kirby's interests"? The whole proposal needs more explanation and consideration. This could get messy.


Update 4 April
Since I first published this post, some of the background to this issue has been made public, although there is still much unknown and a spirited debate about the advisability and impact of the proposed rule change continues in various forums.
For more up to date information check out...
this thread on the Laser Forum and
this interview with Bruce Kirby on Sail World.

Intensity 7.06 Class?

I didn't want to write this post. I don't like the conclusion it's going to reach. But I'm an anal-retentive, analytical bastard and I have this incredibly annoying habit of following any argument to its logical conclusion no matter how unpalatable it is or who it upsets. Just ask my wife.

I've written a couple of posts recently, Fairness and We The People... about how the high price and low durability of the official class-legal Laser sail are driving the sales of much cheaper replica Laser sails from other sources, and how more and more local fleets are allowing the use of these sails for their club racing and even in their regattas. The most popular supplier of such sails in North America is Intensity Sails.

But there's a right and a wrong way for such fleets to do this. They can't just add a sentence in their sailing instructions saying something like, "Competitors are allowed to use Intensity sails." And not only because the Laser class might not like it. Such a change to the SIs is actually not allowed by the Racing Rules of Sailing.

Rule 78 says that a boat must comply with class rules. And if you are running a Laser fleet or a Laser regatta that means the Laser class rules, which say that your sail must be manufactured by a licensed builder.

And Rule 87 says that sailing instructions may change a class rule "only when the class rules permit the change, or when written permission of the class association for the change is displayed on the official notice board." (Good luck with your application for such permission.)

Bottom line, you can't change the SIs to say Intensity sails are allowed because that is a change to a class rule and the Racing Rules of Sailing don't allow you to do that.

But what could go wrong, you say? We're all friends. Our fleet voted by a large majority to allow Intensity sails. We'll just do it.

Well, it only takes one asshole to ruin your plan. What are you going to do when someone sailing with a one-year-old worn-out legal class Laser sail protests everyone who beat him using a nice crisp fast Intensity sail, and he argues at the protest hearing that your change to the SIs to allow Intensity sails is invalid and null and void because of Rules 78 and 87? Or maybe he files for redress under Rule 62 to have his finishing positions adjusted ahead of everyone using Intensity sails because of "an improper action of the race committee or organizing authority" i.e. aforementioned incorrectly written sailing instructions. Or maybe he does both. And if your friends on the protest committee reject his protest and request for redress, he appeals to US Sailing. It only takes one asshole to ruin your plan.

Can anyone who understands the Racing Rules of Sailing better than me tell me if there is a flaw in my logic above?

But fear not, my friend, even if my logic above is correct there is an easy solution. You need to create a new class. Let's call it the Intensity 7.06 Class. (Full rig Laser sails are 7.06 square meters in area.) You write some very simple rules for what equipment is allowed under the Intensity 7.06 Class Rules. In the SIs you say that your regatta is being sailed under the rules of the Intensity 7.06 Class.

End of problem. (I think.)

There are a couple of precedents for this approach. That inventive chappie Steve Cockerill, owner of Rooster Sailing, came up with a larger rig for the Laser. He called it the Rooster 8.1. They hold Rooster 8.1 regattas. They even held a Rooster 8.1 UK National Championship last year. As far as I can tell it's all perfectly kosher and compliant with the Racing Rules, because there is a Rooster 8.1 Class Association. Membership is free, and you are allocated a membership number when you buy a new Rooster 8.1 rig from Steve. Or if you buy a second-hand Rooster 8.1 sail you can apply for a membership number by email. Very simple. Very cheap. (Free is cheap, I think.)

College sailing in the US also went down this route. You might think that college sailing regattas are sailed in Larks, or FJs or 420s. They are not; many colleges modify their boats so that they no longer comply with class rules. Worse than that, college sailing allows certain kinetic moves such as ooching which are not allowed in Rule 42.

But Rule 87 says that SIs can't change the class rules. And Rule 86 says that the SIs can't change Rule 42. How do they get away with it?

Simple. They created a new class. All college sailing in the US is sailed under the rules of the Collegiate Dinghy Class. And, by the way, it is legal for class rules to modify Rule 42. So they did. Simple! Matt Knowles at his excellent rules blog Unruly has more on this at College Sailing & Rule 42.

So, I think it's inevitable that, sooner or later, the increasing number of folk who are racing Lasers with Intensity sails are going to form a class association, if only so that they can have correctly written sailing instructions that comply with the Racing Rules of Sailing and so that they avoid the risk of that asshole protesting half the fleet. It might be me. (Only joking.)

I don't much like the prospect of an Intensity 7.06 Class (or whatever they call it.) I think it's a bad thing for Laser sailing for all sorts of reasons. But this post has gone on way too long already, so I'll save that discussion for another post.

Rule 4

Rule 4 of the Racing Rules of Sailing says, "The responsibility for a boat’s decision to participate in a race or to continue racing is hers alone."

I always thought that this was pretty straightforward but having read some recent discussions on the topic, I'm not so sure. How do you make the decision whether to race or not when wind and wave conditions are challenging, maybe at the borderline or beyond the point at which you are confident in your sailing abilities in those conditions? What criteria do you apply?

Do the actions of the race committee have any bearing on your decision to race? Do you assume that if they decided that the conditions are OK for racing, then it's OK for you to race? And how does the availability of safety boats affect your decision? If there are plenty of safety/ rescue boats around does that mean you are more likely to go out and race even if you think the conditions are well beyond your abilities and you might well get into trouble? And what about the decisions of your fellow competitors? If your closest competition in a series is going out to race, then are you more motivated to go out and race in winds that might be too heavy for you? Or perhaps if they don't race do you figure you can put some good scores on the board against them and so you decide to chance it?

It's complicated...

Of course we all know that in a perfect world we would all rationally assess the current conditions, and weigh any forecast change in those conditions, and take an objective perspective of our own and our crew's experience and fitness and skill levels, and then make an intelligent, logical choice. But in the real world, our emotions and competitive juices and peer pressure all come into play.

It's complicated...

If I think back as to how I have made this decision in the past, then I think I certainly have been guilty of making the assumption that if the race committee are prepared to run races, then it must be OK for me to go out and race. On some of those occasions I have certainly found myself racing my Laser in winds and/or waves that were beyond my ability to sail properly and, more importantly, stay upright for most of the time. But then, if you never go out and challenge yourself in conditions that are beyond your current ability then how will you ever learn to sail in those conditions? And I also confess that, on those days, I have been thinking that it's a lot safer to go out and sail in extreme conditions when there are lots of other Lasers and a safety boat or two around in case I really get into trouble, than it is to go and do it all on my own with nobody else around.

Having said that, I also have a certain pride in my own independence and self-sufficiency that I never want to deliberately be racing in situations where I am going to need the safety boat crew to help me perform a capsize recovery or, horror-of-horrors, tow me back to the shore because I am too tired or too incompetent to perform those tasks myself. I look on the safety boats as insurance in case something totally unexpected happens, like a breakage to the boat that makes it impossible to sail, or for that matter a breakage to me that makes me impossible to sail.

So the number of times I have actually had to rely on a safety boat to get me home safely in 30 years of Laser racing can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There was the time at Wianno YC when my boom broke, and the time at Cedar Point YC when my gooseneck broke. I can't remember any other racing incidents that caused me to need a tow home (not counting the times when I have been happy to accept a tow when the wind dies at the end of the day.) I have broken a mast top section and broken a bottom section and somehow got myself home without assistance. I have broken my rudder and staggered home under my own power. I have cut my head open during a gybe and nearly chopped my finger off with the daggerboard, but still sailed back to the beach by myself. I guess that may be taking the philosophy of self-reliance a bit too far. But that's how I am. I hate to rely on the crash boats unless I really have to.

The times that I have chosen not to participate in racing are principally of two kinds. There have been many, many, (probably too many) occasions I confess when I have looked at the weather forecast or the weather at home on the morning of racing and have thought, "Nah. Too windy. Too cold. Too rainy. Who needs it?" But if I actually travel to the club then I almost always go out and start racing if the RC is running races. However I do apply Rule 4 quite frequently at the end of a day's racing. There have been numerous occasions after a long day of racing in windy conditions, perhaps including several capsizes (which always seem to sap my strength and confidence) that I have decided that enough is enough and headed for the beach. More often than not it's because I'm so tired that I start to feel that after one or two more capsizes I might actually be too bushed to right the boat on my own. And I'm damned if I'm going to ask the rescue boat to help me with that responsibility. That streak of pride and self-reliance thing again, I guess.

So there have been many occasions when I have looked at the wind and the water before leaving the shore and thought, "It looks crazy out there. I'm not sure I can handle this." But I have always gone out with the attitude, "Hey, I'll just try one race and come in if it gets too much for me." And on some of those days I have sailed all the races that day and come in with a big smile on my face. And on others I have skipped the last one or two races and still come in with a big smile on my face. After all, if you don't come back with a big smile on your face then why are you doing it?

So how about you? How do you apply Rule 4?

We The People...

There's always a lot of discussion in the United States about the Constitution. What did the Founding Fathers intend? Is this law constitutional? Why can't we make this sensible reform? Things can get quite heated at times.

The Laser Class has a Constitution too. There are 2807 words in the Laser Class Constitution. There are 4400 words in the US Constitution. Make of that what you will.

My post about Fairness generated a number of questions in the comments that are really questions about the Laser Class Constitution. Many readers wondered why we members of the Laser class can't solve the current sail issues that I outlined in Fairness by simply approving alternative sails from makers who have proved that they can deliver sails that are more durable and considerably cheaper than the current official sails. Indeed my post ended with a speculation of what would happen if we the class (we the people) simply made Intensity sails the new official sails of the Laser Class.

Ah, if only it were that simple. But there is that little obstacle of a Constitution.

So this is how it works (I think.)

The Constitution establishes a World Council. This consists mainly of representatives elected (indirectly) by the members, the Executive Secretary of the class (an employee of the class), and two representatives of the manufacturers. Currently there are six representatives of members on the World Council.

The constitution gives the World Council the right to make the rules of the class.

The World Council may make By-Laws for the purpose of carrying out the objects of this Constitution and of the Association and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, may make By-Laws amending the Rules of the Laser Class, hereby established as By-Law 1 of the Association, as provided in paragraph 29 thereof....

The most important rule they made, and the one that currently defines our policy on sails is this one...

FUNDAMENTAL RULE
The Laser shall be raced in accordance with these rules, with only the hull, equipment, fittings, spars, sail and battens manufactured by a licensed builder.

Ah, you say. Why doesn't the class just change the rule about sails? Well, in theory we could. Rule 30 actually says how we would go about this...

30. AMENDMENTS
Amendments to these Rules shall be approved by each
of:
(a) the World Council,
(b) the Advisory Council,
(c) at least two thirds of the membership replying in writing to the International Office of the Class in response to a postal ballot published by the International Office of the Class. Only those postal votes returned to the International Office within 6 months from the date of publication of the rule change shall be valid, and
(d) the ISAF.

(Slight oddity here. The constitution refers to the "rule changing rule" as Rule 29. But it's actually Rule 30. Whatever.)

Well that's not easy for sure. You have to ballot the members and get a two thirds majority, and after that get ISAF approval too. So it takes a while. But we do it all the time. The most significant change in recent years was the approval of totally new sail control systems - vang, outhaul, cunningham etc.

Wait. What's that about an "Advisory Council". Who are they? And if they are only there to be "advisory" why do they have to approve rule changes? The answer my friend is, of course, to be found in the Constitution...

ADVISORY COUNCIL
15. The President and Vice President of the World Council and two persons nominated by those builders who are also Trademark owners shall constitute the Advisory Council and shall assist and co-operate with the World Council in the carrying out of their responsibilities, and shall have the responsibilities as set forth in paragraph 17 hereof and the paragraph entitled “Amendments” of the Rules.

Huh? Four people. Two of them are appointed by the builders? So does that mean that it's impossible to pass a rule change if the builders don't like it?

Sure does.

So, you say, my helpful friend, just change the Constitution to change the rule about how to change rules.

Let's see how we would do that...

17. Amendments to this Constitution shall be approved by each of:
(a) the World Council
(b) the Advisory Council
(c) at least two thirds of the membership replying in writing to the International Office of the Class in response to a postal ballot published by the International Office. Only those postal votes returned to the International Office within 6 months from the date of publication of the proposed change shall be valid.

Aaaghhh. That pesky Advisory Council again, with those two veto votes.

We are screwed. You can't get there from here.

Mommies Gone Wild

We've had a good rant intelligent rational discussion here before about the topic of Mommy Boats, the pestilence of so-called "coach boats" that infest an increasing number of Laser regattas these days. In the comments to my previous posts Mommy Boats and Ban Mommy Boats NOW the discussions were lively and heated.

Some agreed with me, that the "mommification" of our sport has gone too far. The practice of certain sailors having Mommy Boats bringing them warm coats and hot drinks between races, and of course towing them to and from the course area, is undermining the spirit of independence and self-reliance which is the very essence of our sport of single-handed sailing.

Others pointed out the unfairness of a competition in which only a few competitors have Mommy Boat drivers to provide them with physical and moral support, not to mention passing on information obtained by radio from other Mommy Boat drivers of what the wind is doing around the course.

Of course access to a Mommy Boat gives a sailor an unfair advantage. That's why, at the highest levels of competition, the major international Laser regattas, almost every sailor has a Mommy Boat. You can't hope to compete at that level without your Mommy to help you. US Olympic hopeful Clay Johnson reported that at the Laser World Championship in England last year there were over One Hundred Mommy Boats and, in a wry understatement, that the chop from all these Mommy Boats "doesn't help". Crazy!

And it's getting worse. All these Mommy Boats get in the way of the competitors and interfere with the racing. Sometimes race organizers try and write Sailing Instructions to keep the dratted Mommy Boats away from the race area but it's not working. A case in point was an incident that happened at Sail Melbourne a few weeks ago. There was an SI (#14 here) that specified that Mommy Boats must NOT be in the race area after the first prep signal of the day. In spite of that the following incident (as reported by the International Jury) happened...

When starting in the afternoon on Charlie Course the Laser Standard class and their coach boats caused problems by going through 2 course areas whilst earlier fleets were still racing. The jury were requested by the Charlie Race Officer to assist in clearing the boats, especially near the inner loop gate.

This was done but numerous competitors were intransigent and the jury were moving close to one Laser when a fast moving coach boat came towards the jury boat and Laser. The driver had to make an immediate fast turn to port to avoid a collision which would have ended in damage. In doing so, the other judge who was sitting on the sponson talking to the competitor ended up in the water under the hull. The driver responded very quickly in turning off the engine preventing serious injury.

There is another account of the same incident as reported by one of the sailors (and which differs in some details) at Unruly.

It's bad enough that some Laser sailors were "intransigent" in not responding to requests from jury boats to clear the course area on which another fleet was already racing. It is unforgivable that their Mommy Boats were on the course at all, in clear violation of the SIs. And it is absolutely shameful that one Mommy Boat driver almost caused an accident that could have seriously injured one of the judges.

What can be done to deal with this menace? Clearly it is not enough to state in the SIs that Mommy Boats must not be on the race area after the first prep signal of the day; in this case the Mommy Boat drivers just ignored the SIs. What sanctions can be used to enforce such a rule? Can the Mommy Boat drivers be penalized if they are not actually competitors in the race? Can the sailor associated with a badly behaved Mommy Boat be penalized even though he or she is not directly responsible for the misbehavior? Can SIs be written in a way that will keep these damned Mommy Boats off the race area and stop them getting in the way of competitors?

Seriously. This is beyond a joke.