Why We Need to Keep Rule 16.2 in the Rulebook

Lately, there's been some talk about removing rule 16.2 in team racing, and some people say, “If it's a good idea to remove this rule from team racing, and it's already more or less deleted for match racing, why have it for fleet racing?”

I think there are several good reasons for keeping rule 16.2 in the rulebook.

Before we get into those reasons, let's see what we're talking about. Rule 16 reads, in its entirety:

16 CHANGING COURSE

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

16.2 In addition, when after the starting signal a port-tack boat is keeping clear by sailing to pass astern of a starboard-tack boat, the starboard-tack boat shall not change course if as a result the port-tack boat would immediately need to change course to continue keeping clear.

Rule 16.1 is very straightforward. It protects keep-clear boats from attacks from which they cannot escape. By comparison, rule 16.2 is a bit complicated. It addresses one situation only: a port-tack boat is trying to pass behind a starboard-tack boat, and, loosely put, the rule prohibits dial-downs (or when sailing down wind, dial-ups) when the boats are close. Dial-downs are aggressive maneuvers, and close dial-downs are, essentially, vicious attacks. In match racing, where viciousness is a virtue, that's OK. Arguably the same goes for team racing, which is becoming more and more like match racing. But I think most sailors would agree that vicious attacks have no place in fleet racing, which is all about getting around the race course fast and safely, and having fun doing it.

Thus the primary reason for keeping rule 16.2 is that it preserves a game we like. There's a nice balance to the fleet-racing rules – on the one hand, racing is a competition and we want to give boats who have right of way or who arrive at marks ahead of other boats the power to defend their positions; on the other hand, we don't want the sport to turn into a sequence of confrontations that risk boats and crews. That's what distinguishes fleet racing from team racing and, more dramatically, match racing.

The second reason for keeping rule 16.2 is safety. Dial-downs are almost uniquely dangerous, especially in high-performance boats. On a beat, as soon as a port-tack boat bears off to duck, she accelerates. If the starboard-tack boat bears off at the same time, the closing speed between the two boats can be several times what it was before the bear-off/dial-down – and now, instead of intersecting obliquely, they are coming almost directly at each other. It's not too strong to say that in planing boats there will be serious damage or somebody will get badly hurt if there's contact. The same phenomenon occurs off wind – the port -tack needs to reach up to pass astern and if the other boat reaches up also, the closing speeds increase – though this increase is nowhere near as dramatic as upwind.

But, I hear you asking, doesn't rule 16.1 remove that danger? After all, if there's a real danger of the boats hitting each other, then surely the starboard-tack boat broke rule 16.1? I don't think rule 16.1 does solve the problem. While that rule says the starboard-tack boat can't hit the port-tack boat or cause her to behave in an unseamanlike manner, it still allows aggressive behavior right up to the point of hitting her or forcing her to do something unseamanlike. Rule 16.2 puts a little cushion or buffer in there.

To look at an analogy, why have lines on roads, separating the cars going one way from those going the other? Why not simply prohibit cars from hitting the oncoming traffic or driving them off the road, but let them wander around in the oncoming lanes as long as they obey that law? I think most of us would not want to drive in such a society. Rule 16.2 is, basically, the double line separating lanes of opposing traffic.

The third reason for rule 16.2 is basic fairness. Dialing down does not speed the starboard-tack boat toward her goal of finishing the race, and it does not protect her from a boat taking her wind or pinning her out. By ducking, the port-tack boat is temporarily conceding her position in the race to the other boat, and for the other boat to attack her seems like hitting one's opponent when he's down. When you hold a door open and let a stranger pass through it, you don't expect him to kick you as he goes by.

The final reason is that in some complex situations the port-tack boat needs to plan ahead, and last-second dial-downs prevent her from doing so. To see this, suppose there were no rule 16.2 and consider a boat P in a crowded fleet, near the top of the first windward leg. She's threading her way through the fleet in an effort to get to the starboard-tack layline. There's a boat S1 coming toward her, but P sees that if she ducks S1 she'll still be able to cross ahead of S2, the starboard-tack boat behind and to windward of S1. After that she can continue to thread her way through the fleet and tack above the layline. So she bears off to duck.

Now what happens if, after P has made her plans and has borne off to duck S1, S1 dials down at her? P has already eased her sheets; if she tacks now she'll slow down directly in front of S1, and besides, she has formed her plan and wants to stick to it if possible. So she responds immediately by digging deeper.

Finally P makes it past S1. She hasn't had to do anything unseamanlike, so S1 didn't break rule 16.1. But now, as P trims in to cross the other boats she discovers that her carefully laid plan to thread her way through the fleet is now in ruins. She's in danger of fouling S2, and even if she manages to duck that boat, there's still S3, S4, and so on – each of whom might dial down on her if she tries to duck them. This is unfair and potentially dangerous; and it's what rule 16.2 prevents.

Of course, we want a starboard-tack boat to be able to defend her position. For example, if S1is on the layline and doesn't want P to lee-bow her, she can bear off before P gets to her; now if P tacks, S can luff back up to her previous line in clear air. And, if for some reason S wants to prevent P from ducking her (maybe they're contending for first place in the series), she is allowed to bear off a little earlier, forcing P to tack instead of ducking. As long as she does so early enough so P doesn't have to respond immediately, that doesn't break any rules.

One argument I hear sometimes is that rule 16.2 protests are rarely if ever made. But that may be because, essentially, rule 16.2 is working as intended. Sailors interpret the rule as saying “late dial-downs are illegal,” and so dial-downs don't occur much. I think most sailors are happy with that. Without rule 16.2, dial-downs might become common – look at what happens in match racing.

Match and team racers are playing a different game, much more confrontational and without large numbers of boats to deal with. If the match and team racers want to delete rule 16.2, good on 'em. But leave us fleet racers with a saner and less confrontational sport, give us that safety buffer, and let us make our plans to weave our way through the fleet on port tack. Keep rule 16.2 in the rulebook.

Correction to 'More about Redress'

In my last posting, I said about the second Farah Hall prescription, "Basically, it allows a disgruntled loser from a protest hearing to demand a new hearing, ..." This is not true.  Rule 62.1(a) allows requests for redress for improper actions by protest committees, but adds: "but not by a protest committee decision when the boat was a party to the hearing." So the disgruntled sailor has to be from a boat that was not party to the hearing.  This still allows a boat to take two bites from the apple if she wasn't a party to the original hearing, but at least she can't take a third and fourth bite.

I apologize for the error.

More About Redress

Since my last post on the subject of redress, I’ve received several comments from people I’ve met at regattas, agreeing with me that we should get rid of redress. Maybe there’s more support for this idea than I thought, though of course people who think I’m crazy probably don’t bring it up. If you think we should get rid of redress and be like every other sport in simply accepting unlucky breaks, let people know about it!

In the last post I covered the most common reason for requesting redress – actions or non-actions by race committees, protest committees, organizing authorities, and the like. 

In this post we’ll look at the other reasons a boat might request redress. 
 
Rule 62.1 (b)-(d) says a boat may request redress because of:

     (b) injury or physical damage because of the action of a boat that was breaking a rule
           of   Part 2 or of a vessel not racing that was required to keep clear;

     (c) giving help (except to herself or her crew) in compliance with rule 1.1; or 

     (d) an action of a boat, or a member of her crew, that resulted in a penalty under 
           rule 2 or a penalty or warning under rule 69.2(c).
 
Like the rest of rule 62.1, part (b) seems fair on the face of it; but not so fast. The problem with fairness here is that boats that are fouled in such a way that they lose a huge number of places are not eligible for redress unless there was damage, whereas boats that are damaged in perhaps insignificant ways can claim the damage was what hurt their finishing position, and get redress. Rule 62.1(b) does not require that the damage be substantial, the way rules 44.1(b) (taking a penalty) or 60.3(a) (protest committee hearing a protest that would have otherwise been invalid) do. 
 
On the other hand, rule 62.1 requires that the boat’s score was made significantly worse by the damage itself, not just by the incident. So if boat port-tacks you just after the start and puts a hole in your side and it takes 2 minutes to get the boats apart, can you claim redress for that delay? Reading the rule carefully, I'd say not; but I'll bet most protest committees would say otherwise. If the damage keeps you from sailing on starboard tack until you can duct-tape the hole shut, that’s clearly redressable. 

Rule 62.1(c) and (d) are the most defensible part of the redress rule, but the situations these parts describe are so rare that most sailors can go their entire lives without the events listed in this rule even happening.
 
There's one other thing about redress we need to look at. Some years ago, US Sailing instituted the “Farah Hall” prescriptions, so called because they were pressed upon US Sailing by Farah Hall, who was prevented from being selected to the US Olympic Team because of an incident in the Olympic Trials for the 2008 Games (she subsequently windsurfed her way onto the team for the 2012 Games). One of the Farah Hall prescriptions, to rule 60, deals with redress. It says, 
 

US Sailing prescribes that when redress has been requested or is to be considered, the protest committee shall make a reasonable attempt to notify all boats of the time and place of the hearing and the nature of the request or the grounds for considering redress. Before holding the hearing, the committee shall allow reasonable time for boats to make written requests to participate.

When we first wrote this prescription, I was of two minds about it – on the face of it the prescription seems fair, but it looked as if it could cause huge hassles for the protest committee. Suppose everybody in a big fleet decides to participate? The redress hearing could become unmanageable. But now that the prescription has been around for awhile and is in wide use across the country, I've changed my mind. The general experience I've heard about is that usually almost nobody takes advantage of the opportunity to attend the hearing, and even if lots of people show up for the hearing, a good protest committee can control the process so it doesn’t get out of hand.

The reason I like the prescription is that hearings are essentially adversarial processes, with the protest committee hearing both sides of the argument and deciding the outcome. For example, when there's a protest both the protestor and protestee are parties to the hearing, so both sides of the incident are presented. I can't tell you how many times I've thought the protestor had an open and shut case after she presented her side, only to discover that the protestee's presentation and witnesses cast the entire incident in a different light.

In the case of redress hearings, without the prescription above, usually the only person in the room who stands to gain or lose by the decision is the applicant. It's true that when the redress is brought under rule 62.1(a), the race officer or whoever is claimed to have done an improper act is a party, but nobody really speaks for all those boats that, if the redress is granted, will have lower scores for the event. In the case of requests for redress under rules 61.(b)-(d), there's nobody in the room to say, "Wait a minute.  That kind of damage doesn't really hurt a boat of this type,"  or "I saw them pick up the crew member that had fallen off her boat.  I punched my stopwatch and it was 3-1/2 minutes before she was returned to her original boat, not the 10 minutes claimed by the boat requesting redress."
 
So it makes sense to alert all boats about the redress request and the reasons given in it (usually, by simply posting a copy of the request on the Official Notice Board), so that anybody who may be hurt by the decision can oppose the request. 
 
The only really onerous effect of this prescription is to delay the hearing, and I think that can be taken care of through shorter protest time limits (or maybe a separate, shorter time limit for redress requests) accompanied by electronic communication of the required notice and the requests to be present. 
 
I don't have the same good feeling about the second Farah Hall redress prescription, which is to rule 63.4:

(b) [when practicable] a request for redress based on a protest committee decision shall be heard by a committee that contains no members of the committee that made the original decision.

Personally, I think this prescription is nuts. Basically, it allows a disgruntled loser from a protest hearing to demand a new hearing, and Rule 63.1 requires that once the request if submitted, there has to be a hearing. If there are any judges in the area who weren't on the original protest committee, a new committee must be formed that has no overlapping membership with the old one. And if the request for redress is worded cleverly, the new committee must essentially conduct an entirely new hearing. This gives the loser a “second bite of the apple”, which is distinctly unfair. In my opinion, if the sore loser really believes there were errors or the protest committee simply got the rules wrong, she can appeal. 
 

In cases where new evidence becomes available or the protest committee realizes that they have made a serious error, the loser of the original protest hearing or the protest committee itself can ask that the hearing be reopened so that the new evidence can be heard or the decision can be rethought. In such cases, rule 66 specifies that the panel for the rehearing have a majority of members from the original protest committee – exactly the opposite of the Farah Hall requirement. 
 

Note that the Farah Hall prescriptions can be written out, either individually or in toto, by the sailing instructions. I understand that there are entire areas of the country where it is the custom to do so. But I suggest that before you do this, you should put some careful thought into the value of these prescriptions, not just into the negatives – and I urge you to keep the prescription to rule 60. 
 

Alternatively, you could simply write out redress, altogether. Rule 62 is one of the rules that can be modified by sailing instructions (see rule 86.1). So organizers could simply put the following rule in their sailing instructions:

“SI n. Rule 62 is deleted.”

There might be people who love redress hearings and won't come to your event if they don't have an opportunity to file for redress, so you'd better include this change in the Notice of Race, too.