Respect the Game! Is the fundamental principle still releva

Team racing is different from hockey in that we are umpires NOT referees. What I mean by that, is that as umpires we only make a call if there is a valid protest hail from a boat, then a request for an umpire decision. The process goes:

1. Protest is hailed
2. Protesting boat must give protested boat time to complete a one turn penalty
3. If protested boat decides not to spin, protesting boat requests an umpire decision
4. Umpire gives a decision, which can result in a two turn penalty.

The way the penalty system works in team racing, there is still an emphasis on self-policing. If you admit a foul and spin right away, it is only one turn, but if you wait for an umpire you face a two turn penalty. On the course that extra turn is a game changer.

Dave wrote

I have been thinking about this and I have decided that I lost the argument... I have tried over the years to persuade sailors how to read and look at the rules and I nothing seems to be persuasive.

The old system of

Call your own foul on yourself and honor ROW

is now a system... of

let the other guy call foul on me and then deal with it....

(The ...I always do my circle and get out of jail). This is much closer to the other games we play in our culture.

So... in this new culture...
Make your cross and do a circle when the other guy calls foul...
ooching a laser is not a foul unless you are caught.... (do it better the next time and then you won't be caught)...
Soaking your spin sock is a push of the rule at measurement... and no problem if you get away with it... AND you just move to the back of the line if you do get caught.

So, Dave you asked about all of the F18 sail cloth/patch material rule fubar at their worlds a few years ago...
How do you get all of those technical violations with all of those equipment rules at a Worlds?

Well...

In a call the other guys foul world

... You push the rules, and wait for the foul call.... and when half the fleet is basically illegal... you know they will punt and then change the rules. Remember, that fubar only blew up when one faction had a business interest in nailing the other guy and his business interest.

All of the hypocrisy of... a rule is a rule opining at the time ... was too much....Because we are in the

wait for the call of foul

world...... Not a call your own world.

In the Old school world... the sailors would have DSQ'd themselves and asked to have a second fleet and then the owners would reek vengeance on the sail makers who screwed up and screwed them.

Sailboat racing is not about morality... It was just one of call your own foul and honor the ROW.... (a so called game agreed to by gentleman..) I don't think you ever legislate morality.... (the right thing to do ... is the right thing to do.)
Sadly, I accept the fact.... that this era is over.

In reading the posts above, I don't see how you've come to this conclusion. Jake, Tom, Ding and others are all saying that they respect the game and call their own fouls when they can. They also respect their fellow competitors and spin when asked during close calls.

I race the same way, and while I haven't raced with Jake or Ding, I've been racing with Tom, his fleet, and the Hobie class since 1996, and can definitely attest that this is the prevailing attitude and class culture.

I also spend a lot of time at Opti and other monohull regattas. You would be disgusted and appalled at what happens there (think 40+ boats of an 80-boat fleet arriving at a gate at the same time, bumper boats, marks being all but sunk, rarely a protest and never any circles). That, and the callous way some OAs feel about changing class rules for individual regattas makes me cringe, twitch and drool.

Other than some folks in the other thread missing the requirement to retire (rather than spin) if a significant advantage is obtained, all in all my experience is that we are much better at self-policing than most monohull classes.

Mike

Some of the best protest hearings I've sat(as a judge) were at High-School Regattas. The competitors were polite, straightforward, and appreciative. Even when the ruling went against them, they've thanked the PC, shaken hands, and accepted penalty without complaint. The sailors din't dispute the decision but often asked what they did wrong and how to avoid making the mistake again. It's great as long as we can keep the coaches away (we came close to throwing a coach off the premesis once).

The most combative and least mature competitors often come from PHRF (big boat) racing. I worked a very large regatta once that spawned two Rule 69 hearings.

In adult dinghy racing, there seems to be an aversion to protesting. I think people view a protest as an accusation of cheating (which it is not). It's simply enforcement. Also, there's a desire to avoid filing a protest on shore because it delays the party (particularly for cat sailors), especially if the regatta outcome is not affected.

Personally, I don't believe that the

good old days when people followed the rules

ever truly existed. Human nature has not changed - nostalga has simply clouded our memories. For the most part though, I think sailors at the club level generally show great personal integrity when it comes to following the rules.

If, however, competitors witness rule infractions and don't protest, then they don't deserve to complain. They are (how shall I put this politely)... not part of the solution.

Regarding class rule changes, see RRS 87. Sailing instructions may change a class rule only when the class rules permit the change, or with written permission of the class association.

Sincerely,
Eric

AS THEY UNDERSTAND THEIR RESPONSIBILITY AND ACKNOWLEDGE IT..
fixed it for you.. now it fits the world I see.

and that is the problem for the current rules. For example, The laser sailors and their ooching behavior either simply don't see the problem the way the rules are written or have low personal integrity... hmm that is a problem when so many violate the rules... the problem is similar to the sails issues at the F18 worlds..

what has shifted is the understanding of honor and responsibility to call your own. It shifted to... Wait for the foul call/protest.

Certainly, nothing was perfect back in the day... but the norm has shifted and the Judge's POV in the OP acknowledges the change and looks for solutions. I have been unwilling to accept his premise. sigh...

There is no argument that the ROW boat must exercise their responsibility to the fleet and hail protest.

The problem of no protest is bigger then the platform on which they get to stand and complain.... the problem gets to safety and enjoyment of the game by the fleet....

Do you think the rules were pushed less, the same, or more when the penalty was a DSQ/retirement?

Don't personally remember that world.... So, around the bar... the old guys will tell you... boats crashing into one another is expensive and just not acceptable...
This is YACHT racing after all... not Car racing.

DSQ would certainly create a different game.
Just like the shift to WL racing from the point to point or big triangle races I sailed as a kid.
The change in the rules mindset correlates with the change in the kinds of sailing we do.

The country club sports, sailing, golf, tennis share some history... I think golf is a call your own foul sport as well... I don't play... but do you call foul on your partner.. of are you just playing the course. Has that sport changed?

Check the Basic Principle of Sportsmanship and the Rules. It states:

Competitors in the sport of sailing are governed by a body of rules that they are expected to follow AND ENFORCE

(emphasis mine).

How can you bemoan demise of the

fundamental principle

if you won't follow it yourself? If you don't enforce the rules, don't complain when they are broken. Don't expect Race Committee or Protest Committee to enforce the rules for you. Don't expect that changing the penalty for an unenforced rule will change anybody's behavior on the water.

And no, I don't accept the assertion that the

norm has shifted

. Sailors broke the rules 50 years ago and they didn't DSQ themselves (the only penalty available at the time) without a protest hearing. I don't see how ooching and sail material affect safety, but if rule infractions are affecting your fleet's enjoyment of the game, then enforce the rules.

Eric, didn't mean to say it's all bad in mono-world, but at the average regatta, we're much better. College sailing is a notable difference as well.

You made my point with RRS 87. But, just because the rule is in the book doesn't mean they don't ignore it. I push back every time I'm asked to review as a judge or PRO, and point out that rule. I specifically mention that I'm sensitive to it because of my Hobie racing, militant enforcement of class rules, background.

One of the most common (and absolute stupidest) examples: removing the requirement to carry a whistle (one of maybe three safety rules) because the OA thinks this would require them to supply them for free to the sailors. With the number of certified judges and ROs available for these particular regattas and OAs, this one just blows my mind.

Mike

John Craig, the AC PRO spoke about the rethinking of the rules for the cup compettion at a talk i attended. The accuracy of the data collection on the AC45's changed the culture of the fleet with respect to their using the AC version of the RRS. All of the sailors started out with the mindset of ... Let the other guy call foul.... Push the line etc. ...Standard operating principals here.. So, they pushed the rules. (They were long past the standard of call your own foul.)

Craig reports that he was surprised at how quickly the AC guys adjusted when they figured out that the computer did not lie... They could not BS anyone and they recognized it... With no chance to game the system or their opposition they adjusted ... So... they reset and sailed by the rules. The on the water judges had less to do... They still make errors on the water but he said it is different. He noted that they had not anticipated this outcome on the game.

Of course people broke the rules, that is a silly argument.

We disagree about the shift.. and your POV is in the majority.

How sailors view the responsibility inherent in the rules has a huge effect on the game.... (see Craig) The pro's shifted to an exact standard of the rule. ... They don't call their own fouls on themselves with on the water judges but the reset was demanded by the accuracy of the on board data on each boat.

I try to get OA's not to write new rules (and sailing instructions are rules). When they insist, and a protest arises, I have declared SI's invalid.

It's a mistake to draw parallels between America's Cup rules and RRS fleet racing rules.

First of all, the America's Cup is run in an umpired format founded on match racing. If you read the RRS match racing rules, you'll see that one boat must protest (by flying a

Y

flag) in order for the Umpires to impose a penalty. The culture of self-penalization never existed in match racing.

Secondly, The America's Cup does not use the Racing Rules of Sailing. It uses a completely separate and independent rulebook. There are many differences between the two sets of rules. Differences in how protests are lodged is a small portion.

Thirdly, you're comparing a small group of professional sailors competing in a high-stakes event to a large populace of amateur sailors racing for fun. The professionals are supremely skilled and intimately familiar with the rules. Of course they're going to push the rules to the utmost. That's their job.

@bacho-This is what I was trying to say!!! <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" /> Quoted from Isotope42.

In adult dinghy racing, there seems to be an aversion to protesting. I think people view a protest as an accusation of cheating (which it is not). It's simply enforcement. . For the most part though, I think sailors at the club level generally show great personal integrity when it comes to following the rules.

If, however, competitors witness rule infractions and don't protest, then they don't deserve to complain. They are (how shall I put this politely)... not part of the solution

Stop looking at the trees of this debate.

Of course the rules, skills, etc differ and that is not the point of the AC anecdote.... the fundamental rule has not changed

The point is that BEHAVIORS CHANGE...

Ideally everyone who is incurring a penalty does their turn. Unfortunately the sport involves people and sometimes they don’t or wont. It may be from being a dick or just ignorance of the rules, it does not matter.

At a high level like the AC or Olympics, these will be called for sure as there is something more at stake. Most of the lurkers here are attending local fleet stuff and the various ad hoc race. No money, sponsorship etc involved, just bragging rights over 4 people who should be your friends. At these races the protest committee is often more random than anything else. Taking a protest into a local event in my experience results in a big part in why more people do not do it. I have seen way too many protest results that were based on favoritism and such to make it a crap shoot to even bother. For me a local event always was as much and maybe more about the social aspect than the racing. I am not likely to take hours of my social time to run something in front of a protest committee (unless there is damage or injury)
I will typically approach the other racers about it on the beach, and I definitely realize the fact that I cannot bitch about it if I do not file a protest. For the most part, you all know the others at an event. You also know who pulls the stunts to their advantage. Take the extra effort to avoid them and the race experience will be more positive.

If behaviors changed in AC racing, it is because enforcement became automatic, not because of any change to sailors' ethics.

I don't understand where this idea that only the boat breaking a rule is responsible for enforcing the rules. That has never been the case under any version of the Racing Rules of Sailing. All boats are expected to follow the rules. All boats are expected to enforce them.

If sailors are not willing to enforce the rules themselves (as expected under the Basic Principle of Sportsmanship and the Rules), then I have little sympathy when they complain that others don't.

I beleive that the solution to the problem that Peter Wilson wrote about lies not in pining for the good old days, nor in a different penalty system, but in changing the attitude that enforcement is somebody else's responsibility. If you want to discuss why people don't protest, and what might be done to encourage them, then I'm happy to participate. Otherwise, I'm tired of repeating myself.

Sincerely,
Eric