Monday, March 30, 2020

Who's Foul vol. 3 - Optical Illusions and Old Arguments revisited!





Another near - simultaneous Tacking situation! This one's from the 2010 Hinman US Team Race Champs gold round race between Team Silver Panda and Team Tall Boyz. This foul situation pits 2 former Harvard University Sailing All-Americans against each other:

* Clay Johnson rounding Mark 4 in first in the Grey Sailed Vanguard 15
* Clay Bischoff rounding Mark 4  3rd in the Yellow Sailed Vanguard 15.

There is rig contact between the 2 boats, but according to Johnson, no hull contact.



Who's Foul (Bischoff or Johnson)? 
As we do each week, your answers in the comments section, and my own thoughts coming Friday!

My Answer: 
With a moderate degree of certainty I would say: penalize Bischoff (yellow) for breaking rule 13. I will first explain how I arrived at this conclusion, then why I still have reservations, and invite any actual umpires to continue commenting! 

Let us start by establishing who is the keep clear boat. Rule 13 Defines a tack:

Rule 13 WHILE TACKING After a boat passes head to wind, she shall keep clear of other boats until she is on a close-hauled course. During that time rules 10, 11, 15 and 12 do not apply. If two boats are subject to this rule at the same time, the one on the other’s port side or the one astern shall keep clear.

So a boat has completed a tack when she reaches a close hauled course. "Close hauled" is not defined in the rule book, and is different for each type of sailboat. However, its clear from numerous cases and calls that the rule is referring to the direction in which the hull is pointing - is the bow pointed on a normal close hauled course for that class of boat. A sail luffing because it is eased (say on the starting line) does not mean that a boat is above close hauled, just as a sail temporarily or artificially  filled by flattening/rocking and thus moving the apparent wind angle aft does not mean a boat is close hauled. 

It is exactly this last scenario that Bischoff is using to make it appear he is close hauled on starboard, when in fact he is not. The aggressive flattening of the V15's rig fills the sails while the boat is still almost head to wind. 

Look at the hulls of the Vanguard 15's in this sequence of pictures to see what I mean:
 ^Bischoff (Yellow # 7) crossing head to wind from Port tack for the first time.

^Bischoff flattening at almost the exact same angle (again hull/bow of  # 7), making his sails fill and giving the illusion that he is on Starboard.

^Bischoff holds this angle (just past head to wind from Port tack) and eventually his jib makes clear that he is in-fact head to wind.


^In this last photo, Johnson (Grey #11 ) and Bischoff's teammate in Yellow #8 show from the same camera angle what a close hauled course in a V15 really is. - at least 15 degrees lower than Bischoff ever gets before the contact!

So its pretty clear to me that Bischoff is subject to rule 13 at the time of the contact and breaks either the first sentence of 13 if Johnson is on Starboard at the time of contact, or the last sentence if Johnson is also subject to rule 13. Here's a call that explains that last sentence of rule 13 and is very similar to this situation:





While I think Johnson is below close hauled on starboard when the Clay's rigs make contact, this call makes Rule 15 irrelevant to the situation. Johnson wasn't acquiring right of way, he had right of way from the moment both boats crossed head to wind!



My reservations about this decision come from this question: Did Johnson break rule 16.1? 

Rule 16 CHANGING COURSE 16.1 When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear. 

By coming out of his roll tack below close hauled with his rig significantly rolled towards Bischoff was Johnson giving Bischoff enough room to keep clear? Im leaning yes, because Bischoff is not trying to keep clear - he is going for contact! But its close - Bishoff is basically holding his course for a period before the contact. 

Bischoff isn't the only smart sailor to try to draw a foul with this same maneuver. Here's Cody Roe this past January in a team race Opti practice:



In fact, Cody in some ways does it better than Bischoff:
  1.  He is closer to actually being close hauled on starboard when his mast makes contact with Lulu's leach. 
  2. Situationally its smarter for Cody to put the call in the hands of the umpires: he is loosing the drill to the purple-pinnie-team whereas Bischoff's team is solidly winning when he "fishes for the foul." 

Both Bischoff and Roe knew what they were doing and had probably practiced this maneuver many times before. Its incumbent on Umpires to understand that the apparent wind in rocking rigs lies to us - we need to look at the heading of the hull to determine when a boat reaches close hauled. It is also my hope that when the Call Book for Team Racing updates in 2021 that it will give us more clarity on this situation, and define to what extent a boat tacking to starboard to cover must respect rule 16.1. 


Here's the race in its entirety - pretty impressive play 2 conversion by Silver Panda at the top of its game against a quality opponent:

2 comments:

  1. It looks to me like the boat with the white sail had completed his tack before the time the yellow boat had drawn contact, and also that the yellow boat was crossing head to wind at the point of contact.

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  2. Justin Callahan writes: The both completed thier tack at the same time which puts the yellow boat with rights. However, I do not believe there was enough time and opportunity for the grey boat to keep clear. I would say penalize yellow under rule 16.1 and 15.

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