Junior Sailor to Intercollegiate Sailor; Where did the Nice come from?

This past October, I did another weekend stint of Race Committee for the Naval Academy's Women's Fall Regatta. Warm weather, lightish winds and skilled women dinghy sailors going at it. Watching intercollegiate regattas over the past three years, there is one conundrum that has percolated up in my brain.

How is it that junior sailors, who seem to be very rules averse, (see my post about the cheating at the Laser Radial ACC's ) become magically transformed as intercollegiate sailors. For the most part intercollegiate sailors know the rules, acknowledge infractions on the water, and do their penalties. During the Women's Fall Regatta, out of 30 or so races there were only four or five protests filed.

Two instances from the weekend stand out in my mind.

1. I watched a St. Mary's sailor, who after finishing, was earnestly discussing an incident from the previous race with a fellow competitor. The discussion was calm and her hands were active in painting the boats positions. This rules discussion was treated as learning experience with the expectation that this wouldn't happen again.
2. At the finish boat, in one race we had a strong flood that had closed the starboard lane into the finish down to about 4 feet; below that you had to tack onto port to cross the line. This created one of those sailing black holes you see every once in a while. Those who tacked onto port were blanketed by starboard tackers and then slowed to a standstill by the flood. More boats piled into this zone, confronted by port tackers completely stopped, and more starboard tackers ended up below the safe zone and were now tacking. It was a mess. But there was no yelling and the poor port tackers were doing their damndest to flop back onto starboard to avoid fouling right of way boats. If I had been involved in that scrum, I would have stood up in my boat and railed against the race committee, the weather gods, the flooding tide and so on. But, thankfully, these women were much more mature.

So how is a junior sailor, who is now competing with dubious morals, molded into a responsible, mature intercollegiate competitor?

Is it?

1. Peer Pressure - There seems to be an expectation among intercollegiate competitors that if you foul, you will do your turns.
2. Coaching - Certainly in college racing with no throw outs, the college coach wants consistent good finishes. A DSQ for a silly foul where the sailor neglected to do penalty turns is a definite no-no. It adds a ton of points to the teams overall score.
3. Lack of parental involvement - There are parents watching the college racing but the key is - they are watching... they are not coaching, they are not haranguing the race committee, or the coaches, or their kids.

This is not to say that once intercollegiate sailors return to regular sailing they don't attempt to pull a fast one every so often on us oldsters.

A week later, the Naval Academy ran the coed Trux Umstead Regatta in lots of breeze. Here is a video of the 420's and Flying Juniors approaching and rounding the offset mark.

Rule 42 violation on Youtube

From the 2009 Finn Gold Cup;



To add a teaching component to this post, I asked senior US Sailing Judge, Hugh Elliot to give us the judge's perspective on the video;

Here is my commentary:

1. Finn GBR 41 sailing dead downwind - or nearly so - in surfing and planing conditions (Judges so state after the yellow flag at ~ 45 seconds into video).

2. There is some rocking of the boat, apparently induced by the skipper. Since the boat appears to be changing course - to windward when heeled to leeward and vice versa - when this is done, the boat does not break any rule. See RRS 42.3(a) (and ISAF Interpretation Rock 6) which permits the boat to be heeled to facilitate steering. This is an exception to the prohibition on rocking found in RRS 42.2(b)(1).

3. The judges are focusing on the skipper's actions with respect to the sail - specifically pumping. According to the ISAF Interpretations of Terms Used, a pump is a single pull [usually vigorous] on a sail unrelated to wind or waves. RRS 42.2 (a) prohibits repeated fanning of any sail by pulling in and releasing the sail. See Interpretations Pump 1 and Pump 2.

4. RRS 42.3(b) permits one pump - but only one - for the purpose of initiating surfing or planing. One judge can be heard counting the number of pumps [at least two, possibly three] on the same wave. This breaks RRS 42.2(a). In addition, since the boat is already surfing or planing, the exception in RRS 42.3(c) is not available but, if it were, only the first pump would be permitted.

The ISAF Interpretation of RRS 42 may be found here http://www.sailing.org/2004.php They are dated 2005 but did not change for the 2009 - 2012 period.

Best regards

Hugh

Tip of the hat to Hugh for imparting this wisdom.