Well the Starling Nationals is over for another year and as I predicted the competition at the top was fierce. I understand that going into the last day with 4 races to sail there were four sailors who could have won. In the end Sean Herbert who sailed consistently well throughout the series is National Champion for the 3^rd consecutive year. This is the first time this has ever happened. Second place went to Nathan Vince by all accounts missing first place by inches and third place to Mattias Coutts who led at the end of day 3 but faded rather in the fresher breeze on the last day. First girl was Ella Gladwell (7^th) followed by Stella Bilger (8^th). Silver fleet was won by Reuben Coxhead and the Development fleet by Benjamin Brewer.

Overall the contest was a light wind affair with boats sometimes struggling to finish within the 20-minute finish window. Even the last day which was sailed mostly under O flag had a big wind shift when the sea breeze took over from the gradient breeze.

As Race Officer I was particularly delighted with the way the class responded to the U flag. Instead of all lining up along the start line minutes before the start, the fleet generally lined up 3-4 boat lengths back and slowly soaked up to the line over the last 2 minutes. As a result, we had very few General recalls or UFDs. That enabled us to get through the entire programme of 12 races instead of wasting time practising our starts.

For the first time in my race management career we used an I pad to video every start. What a revelation that turned out to be. When we use U flag there is no individual recall and so no urgency to identify boats over the line. We had the luxury of viewing the start numerous times until we were certain we had correctly identified every boat that was over.

Taipa SC organised a great regatta. Competitors will never know the personal efforts put in by the club members and others from the region. Unfortunately, some competitors will recall that the results were a bit slow coming out. Sailwave was having trouble combining 2 fleets and Jill, Aevril and others spent many hours late into the night as well as being on the finish boat all day trying to find what they had done wrong. Eventually calling in outside assistance it was confirmed they had done nothing wrong and that there was a bug in the programme, which was refusing to accept two firsts, two seconds etc. Eventually the results were re-entered into Excell so that points could be calculated and later converted back into a new copy of Sailwave.

Despite spending weeks practicing for this Nationals we had a glitch when it came to the first course change and we didn’t have everything in the right place to do it. That race was abandoned and restarted. For us in the Race Management team it was a bit of a low point but after some discussion over night we ironed out the problems and next day carried out a perfect double course change. Hats off to the Taipa team who were so keen to get it all right.

Apart from those two relatively minor problems the rest of the event went extremely well I thought. Measuring lead by Brian Peet was straight forward and the queues were not too long. Despite my earlier newsletter urging sailors to check their centreboards there were still several sailors who had to make alterations but generally there were no major headaches. The preponderance of McKay hulls makes measuring so much easier than it used to be with all the wooden boats. I would also like to thank the 3 judges, Mike Alison, Graeme Robinson and Louis Mayo. A few years ago rule breaking was rife in the Starling class and no-one bothered to do their turns. We asked the judges to clamp down and things, though not perfect, are much better than they were then.

Unfortunately, there were a number of incidents which would generally come under the heading of “not accepting the judgement of officials”. When a small club like Taipa puts on an event like this their resources, especially human resources are stretched to the limit. Often a person will have not one but maybe 2 or 3 roles. They accept this because its all part of running major events. It is a pity for them when their efforts are contradicted or questioned. The article I am about to write is an attempt to highlight some of the problems by describing theoretical examples and asking you to decide what you should do about them. Although this is prompted by things which happened at Taipa the incidents are not actual incidents which happened there but something theoretically similar I have invented to illustrate the principle. I hope sailors will take this on board, because if you have plans to keep sailing competitively you will need to know what is the correct action to take when things don’t go your way.

Judges at a Nationals only police RRS42 – pumping etc – on the water. They do not police the other sailing rules although they will make note of any transgressions they see in case there is a protest later and then they can be witnesses. Their other function is of course to hold any protest hearings. Behind the scenes the Race Management team frequently liaise with the judges if something is not quite right on the course. For example, we were a bit late getting a signal boat in place for a course change. We pointed it out to a judge who watched what happened and then was in a position to decide if anyone was disadvantaged. Judges, especially International judges are at a very high standard. They are often flown to overseas regattas because the organisers want the very best. Their decisions should be respected

Q1) You keep getting penalised by the on-water judge. You think they are being unfair to you, maybe even picking on you. What can you do about it?

a)Lodge a request for redress and test whether their decision is correct

b)Talk to the judge after the race and find out what his / her problem is

c)Raise the matter with the Sailing Committee and suggest they have a word with the judge concerned.

A1)  The fact that you have been penalised several times suggests your RRS42 technique is wrong. It maybe your kinetic actions or the way you carry out your penalty. You cannot (usually) request redress against an action of the protest committee which is the judges. RRS App P4 specifically prevents it.

The protest panel is appointed by the Organising Authority which is not the same as the Sailing Committee and so the SC have no authority over the judges as such. Your best solution is to speak to the judge concerned. I have heard judges say many times that they are available to discuss their decisions. In fact, at Taipa the judges held a briefing before the championship started, during which they not only discussed the ins and outs of RRS42 but also said they would not be coaching sailors during the race but were happy to talk about it afterwards. That meeting was only attended by about half the sailors, so we assume the rest knew everything there was to know already – yeah right. This message should go to the coaches too because it is quite clear that some of them are coaching RRS42 incorrectly. The Judges have told me they are very happy to run club based rules sessions. All you have to do is ask them.

As often happens at major events the results were announced at the prizegiving. There was significant speculation because as I said earlier there were up to 4 people in the running for National Champion.

Q2) The results are available only after the prizegiving and you suspect there has been an error. What action should you take.

a)Lodge a request for redress and let the protest committee investigate

b)Talk to the scorer or someone involved in taking and / or processing the results

c)Lodge an appeal with Yachting NZ

d)Forget it as it is too late to change anything

For the Organising Committee it is difficult to know which is best; post provisional results so that any errors can be corrected before the prizegiving or keep them a secret so that the Prizegiving is the pinnacle of the event. The important thing to remember here is that there are rules about requesting redress.  RRS62 explains what can and cannot be done. RRS62.2 sets out the time restrictions on lodging a request and allows for requests to be lodged after the prizegiving. In this particular example a request could be lodged within a “reasonable” time after the results became known. Provided the request is lodged correctly a hearing can be held later if everyone has scattered after the prizegiving. Incidentally there is no official form on which to lodge a request or even a protest. As long as it's in writing and sets out the items in RRS61.2 then it can be written on the back of an envelope if that’s all you have.

You might, in the circumstances, choose to speak with someone of authority because that might be the quick way to resolve the problem but if you don’t get satisfaction quickly there, make sure you lodge the request. A matter like this cannot be appealed to YNZ. Appeals are specifically the next level if you think the protest committee have made the wrong decision. Even then there are limitations. If you haven’t had a hearing you can’t appeal its decisions.

Q3) The Race Officer and his / her assistant and the pin end spotters are the only people correctly positioned to be able to call OCS’s, UFDs etc and a similar situation applies at the finish. Frequently OCSs and UFDs as well as BFDs are notified on the committee boat at the end of the race, whereas finishing positions usually are only shown on the noticeboard. What should you do if you think they have got it wrong?

a)Speak to the officials concerned

b)Speak to potential witnesses and then to a judge with a request that they take it up with the officials

c)Lodge a request for redress

 Firstly, most Finish boat crews don’t mind telling you who got what out of a tight finish, but at some competitions they are not allowed to communicate with the sailors, or they are simply too busy. If that is the case, then your only remedy is to lodge a “finishing place enquiry” if these are being used or lodge a request for redress.

It never ceases to amaze me how poorly sailors are aware of where the start line is. This is witnessed by the big bend in the start line either a sag to leeward or a bulge to windward. I think the value of a transit to starboard through the committee boat is often understated. If the Race Officer can see you, then you can usually see the windward start pole. The Race Officers I know would never penalise an early starter if they were not certain they were OCS but they do have a duty to identify as many as possible. As I said earlier on in this piece the introduction of the use of video to play over and over again is an exciting improvement. We are all aware of the sailor who tries to hide behind other boats so that they can’t be identified but the video usually shows them, and their number can be identified

Q4) You were identified as being over the line in the last minute of a U flag start. Should you -:

a)Accept it as you knew you were close

b)Request redress because there is a chance the Race Committee can’t prove it

c)Request to see the video and take it from there

By querying the call, you are basically accusing the Race Officer of being incompetent so don’t expect a warm reception if in fact you knew you were close. If you truly believe there has been a case of mistaken identity and the Race Officer can’t immediately recall the circumstances, then he will probably be happy to review the video with you or listen to his tape. If you request redress the protest committee will want to know that the Race Committee were using best practice and unless you have concrete proof that they made a mistake you are highly unlikely to win if the Race Committee were thorough. Explanations like “there were other boats forward of me and they didn’t get penalised”, “I was pretty sure I was behind the line”, “my coach was at the other end and he said I was OK” are unlikely to prove successful. On the other hand, a sailor who says “my boat is similar to his and I think it was me that was over not him” just might sway the protest committee.

In all my years of being a Race Officer I have never had such a call reversed in a request for redress. I did one year reverse one myself. There was a distinctive purply blue painted boat with red number which was OCS, but I couldn’t read the numbers. As the boats sailed away after the start, I thought I could identify it, but it was another almost identical boat immediately behind the one I had picked. I was showing some video prior to the prizegiving and the family approached me to say they felt sure it wasn’t their daughter and would I look at the video with them. Once I had seen it several times and they had commented I realised I had made a mistake and corrected it. I would ask for the sanity of all Race Officers, unless you are certain, don’t drag them through that process, just to try it on.

So how did you do; picking the right answer? There is a lot more in the rule book than what happens when boats meet. I suggest you familiarise yourself with what’s there. It is all relevant. Oh and by the way, the judges have asked me to repeat what they said and that is that they are happy to run club based seminars on this stuff. Dont be afraid to ask them.

Article added: Monday 06 May 2019