Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope Santa brought you something special for your boat. Since the water is just on the edge of freezing out there, you may want to wait until spring to try it out. Of course, a few of you are crazy enough to sail DNs once the ice gets really thick. Just don't end up wading ashore like Santa.

132 days to go to the first race of the season!

New Rules Class at MRYC

The Miles River Yacht Club is organizing a meeting in March to go over the 2009-2012 Racing Rules of Sailing. Time and date are not yet set, but there will be a class in March sometime. There will be a nominal fee for taking the class, but there is also talk of a raffle and some sort of social aspect to the class.

Could be interesting! I’ll let you know when I hear more.

Marshall

Interesting Videos

If you're interested in checking out some videos about the new Racing Rules of Sailing, Matt Knowles over at SailGroove has put together a few. There is a good description of The Zone, Room to Tack, and the ever exciting effects of deleting Rule 17.2.

Seriously, if you're a visual kind of person, there is a lot to check out.

Marshall

Rule 18 applies at Marks

But what is a mark?

According to the definitions a Mark is:

An object the sailing instructions require a boat to leave on a specified side,
and a Race Committee boat surrounded by navigable water from which the starting
line of finishing line extends. An anchor line or an object temporarily or
accidentally attached to a mark is not part if it.

Well, that’s not bad. All the tetrahedrons and government marks listed on the course board are marks. The committee boat is also a mark and that makes sense. What about the last sentence? Anchor lines are not part of the mark. While it is not advisable to hit the anchor line of a mark (because soon after you will likely hit the mark itself), hitting the anchor line is not a foul on its own.

What is this object that is temporarily attached to the mark? It is the dreaded “barging-mark”! So, the rules are saying that a barging mark is Not part of the starting mark. So if it is not part of the mark, can you hit it? Why, yes you can. Should you? It’s not a good idea. If you were to tangle in the barging mark, you could touch the committee boat and that would be a foul.

Remember for Wednesday Night Racing, we have a special rule in the Sailing Instructions that says the penalty for hitting and doing damage to the committee boat or people on-board is disqualification. If you do it more then once, you could be asked to not return by the steering committee. Touching the committee boat is a foul, but hitting the committee boat will get you protested by the RC and disqualified. Be Safe!

So, it’s Rule 18 for all Marks?
Not quite. There are other exclusions. Let’s look at the preamble of Section C (just before Rule 18). It says that Rules 18, 19, and 20 “do not apply at a starting mark surrounded by navigable water...” Therefore, while the committee boat is a mark of the course, Rule 18 Does Not apply at the committee boat. You cannot call for Mark-Room at the committee boat, or the pin end.

Rule 18 also does not apply when boats are on opposite tacks on a beat to windward. If you’re approaching the windward mark and you’re on Port, you have a problem. The port-tack boat has to give way the same as if there was no mark. 18.1(a)

Rule 18 also does not apply when the two boats are on opposite tacks and the proper course for one of the boats is to tack. This happens when the windward mark is rounded to Starboard. Even if a port-tack boat is on the lay-line approaching the windward mark, starboard boats have right of way. The port-tack boat has to give way the same as if there was no mark. 18.1(b)

Rule 18 does not apply when one boat is approaching and the other is leaving the mark. In this situation, rights are determined as if there was no mark (sound familiar?). 18.1(c)

Lastly, Rule 18 does not apply if the mark is a continuing obstruction. In that case, Rule 19 applies instead. This rule doesn’t really come into effect in Wednesday Night Sailing because we don’t have any marks that are continuing obstructions, but you might run into it elsewhere.

Fortunately, these exclusions are all the same as in the 2005-2008 rules.

It’s a mark and Rule 18 is not excluded
So, it’s a mark and you’ve determined that Rule 18 is not excluded. Now what? The old rules said Rule 18 applies when “boats are about to round or pass a mark”. The new rules say it applies when “When at least one of them is in the Zone”. Ah, the Zone. We talked about that before. The Zone is now three boat-lengths of the boat nearer to the mark.

There are two changes here. First, the Zone is now three boat-lengths as we discussed before. Second is that the definition changed some. Now it applies when one of the boats is in the Zone. This is the same meaning as before, but it is clarified by wording the rule better.

When does Rule 18 apply?

Okay, we know when it doesn’t, but when does Rule 18 apply? When one of the boats reaches the Zone. Not before the Zone, but it applies when either boat is In the Zone.

So, what happens?
If boats are overlapped When the first boat reaches the Zone, “the outside boat shall give the inside boat mark-room...” 18.2(a) Okay, that’s good. If you’re on starboard coming into the windward mark, and to windward of you there is an overlapped boat at the time you get to the Zone, you can ask for mark-room. (You remember mark-room from the last post). From that point on, regardless of what happens In the zone, the outside boat will give you room to approach and pass the mark.

What if you are leeward, but there is no overlap when you reach the Zone? 18.2(b) says that, if there is no overlap, the boat clear-astern when the first boat reaches the zone, shall give mark-room to the boat clear-ahead. If you are clear-ahead, the boats clear-astern need to give you mark-room. If others were clear-ahead, you need to give them mark-room.

Even if you loose the overlap inside the zone, you still get mark-room. Rule 18.2(c) says that, even if the overlap is broken, you are entitled to mark-room. As long as you were entitled to mark-room when you entered the zone, you are entitled to it always.

Unless you pass head-to-wind. 18.2(c) also says that, if you pass head-to-wind, you loose rights. No tacking in the Zone! If you pass head-to-wind, you loose the rights you gained by being overlapped at the zone.

Next post, we’ll talk about the weird cases for rounding marks including what happens at a gybing mark.

Marshall

Looking to - Rule 19

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I've been following a blog on racing rules called Looking to Windward.

On Wednesday, there was a new post regarding Rule 19 and Starting. While it may be more interesting to the Star sailors in our fleet, I think even PHRF sailors who see bigger starts in Annapolis will find the analysis interesting.

I will be commenting on Rule 19 and how it pretains to WNR, but you might find more in-depth analysis worth the read.

Only 160 days until the first Wednesday Night Race of 2009.

Marshall

It’s Rule 18

And it’s completely re-written
So they changed Rule 18 for 2009-2012. In the past, Rule 18 applied to rounding marks and passing obstructions. That was a bit confusing, so they broke the old Rule 18 into two different Rules. Rule 18 now applies to rounding marks while Rule 19 applies to passing an obstruction. The old Rule 18 stuff was a bit too complicated when you are approaching shallow water, so this is a good solution. After all, when did you last call, “I’m going to run aground in two boat-lengths. I need room”?

However, there is still a lot happening at the marks. All the stuff in the old Rule 18 still needs to be there, so this is helpful to break up the Rules. There is one Rule for rounding marks – Rule 18; another simpler Rule for room to pass an obstruction – Rule 19; and a third Rule for room to tack at an obstruction -Rule 20. Together they make up Section C of Part 2 (when boats meet).

But let’s concentrate on the new Rule 18.


I’m in the Zone!
The biggest change you will notice is that many classes felt that two boat-lengths to a mark did not allow enough time for action. Faster moving boats would get to the two boat-length “zone” around a mark and then have almost no time to establish rights and get around the mark. Three was better for most boats and even four for really fast boats like catamarans. Unfortunately, the rules did not allow this to change.

In comes the new Rule 18. No longer is there a specific radius in the Rule. Now Rule 18 simply refers to the “Zone” around the mark and leaves defining the Zone to the definitions. In the definitions, Zone is defined as “area around a mark within a distance of three hull lengths of the boat nearer to it”. So, three it is.

The advantage of this is that the Sailing Instructions can change the definition of “Zone”, if the fleet thinks that a different length would work better. Rule 18 stays the same all the time, but fleets can define “Zone” as appropriate. Most fleets will stay with the RRS and use three lengths, but some will change to meet the fleet’s interests. Unless a change is stated in the SI, the length is three boat-lengths of the boat nearer to the mark.


And I want mark-room
Yes, well, because definitions are making things a bit easier for Zone, you can expect that definitions are getting more complicated elsewhere. In the old rules, you called for “room” if you had the inside at a mark. Now there are two definitions:

Room – the space a boat needs in the existing conditions while maneuvering pomptly in a seamanlike way.
Mark-Room – Room for a boat to sail to the mark and then room to sail her proper course while at the mark. However, mark-room does not include room to tack unless the boat is overlapped to windward and on the inside of the boat required to give mark-room.

Now that is many words to say that, when approaching a mark, you want mark-room. The new definition of “room” is used elsewhere, so Rule 18 is about “mark-room”. Imagine you’re approaching the windward mark on starboard with an overlapped boat to windward of you. When the first of the two boats gets to the Zone, you are going to call, “Mark-Room, please”. Not a big deal, but calling “room” is reserved for other situations.

Next post, we’ll get more into the actual meat of Rule 18, but these definition changes are the biggest change you will notice on the racecourse.

Marshall

New Rules for 2009-2012

As many of you know, the International Sailing Federation updates the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) once every 4 years. They do this right after the summer Olympics. The idea is that 4 years of working with the rules should be enough to find the issues and now the time has come to make updates. Starting on January 1st, there will be new rules that govern racing.
If you've been racing many years like me, you remember the big changes they made in 1997. Wow, that was hard to have so many new rules in one year! Even though lots of work was put in making the 1997 rules, there was still confusion about interpretation and applying the rules on the water.
You can breathe easy – there are not many changes to the RRS for 2009-2012. If you've been keeping up with the cases and appeals, you will find that very little has changed. Here are the main changes:

• two boat-length "zone" around marks is now (usually) three
• rounding marks and passing obstructions – new words, same basic meaning
• rule 17.2 is gone (not really a big deal)

The Royal Yachting Association has put together an extensive presentation on the new rules. I've uploaded it to the files section here. There is a lot of info there (121 slides!), but many conceivable situations are discussed.
For those of you interested in a discussion of the new rules, I intend to post individual topics on this Wednesday Night Sailing Blog. Feel free to comment and ask questions. If there are questions on a specific situation, email me and I can work on answering you. (Address is on the right near the bottom of the bar.)
Marshall

PHRF A 2008 Season Standings

And with these class standings, you have all the results for 2008.

The first four boats in A fleet (plus one more) were out there every single race of the season! That's some real dedication. Excellent job everyone.

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Type	Total
1	Mooncusser	PF Flyers	Andrews 26	29
2	MyRx	Team Rx	J-24	37
3	Echo	Kabler,Bond	J-24	39
4	Redbeard	Nilsen,Hans	Ericson 38	57
5	Blew Bird	Larsen,Bob	Thunderbird	64
6	Rumour	Seemans,Harry	J-30	78
7	289	Manheimer,Dave	Colgate 26	117
8	Cabaret	Boettner,Si	Elite 34	120
9	Ostinato	Staley,Jeff	J-105	131
10	288	Barron,John	Colgate 26	136
11	Koru	Levy,Michael	Jeanneau 45	178

For your perusal, I'll be posting all the results form the year in the files section at the Yahoo!groups site.

Congratulations Everyone!

You have 168 days to get your boat ready for the first race of the 2009 season. Check back here for updates on the new rules, discussions about the season, articles about common occurrances on the race course, and other items of interest to Wednesday Night racers.

Marshall

PHRF B 2008 Season Standings

You already know the standing for the winner of the B fleet, so here are the standings for everyone else. Good job!

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Type	Total
1	Pagan	Brown,Norman	B-40	22
2	Inka	Kabler,Hugh	Triton	39
3	Resolute	Wood,Bob	Ericson 35	50
4	Swagman	Schuster,Alex	Cheoy Lee 36	62
5	Red Dog	Dow,Jeff	Impulse 21	63.5
6	Widget	Morgan,Rick	J-22	64.5
7	Penniless	Buck,Janet	C&C 30	80
8	Full Deck	Pevey,Volatile	Morgan 30	90
9	Lark	Albrecht,Glenn	Cal 25	150
10	Scalded Hound	Lewis,Eastman	Lightning	183
11	Kotuku	Levy,Michael	Gemini	191
12	Fiscal Stray	Engelskirchen,Tod	Morris 36	196
12	Whimsey	Binder,Charles	Ensign	196

Star Fleet 2008 Season Standings

Congratulations to all the Star sailors this year!

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	Total Points
1	7307	Jade	Jenkins, John	32.0
2	7530	Poop Poop	Flower, Bob	36.4
3	7585	Locus	Ryan, Jim	55.8
4	7102	Lucky	Murdoch, Will	64.3
5	7568	Star Struck	Elliott, Don	82.0
6	7465	Enabler	Cullen, Smigo	82.0
7	7512	Popeye	Balderson , Joe	92.0
8	7202	Second Wind	Richardson, John	92.6
9	7785	Elusive	Wiley, Chuck	94.4
10	7786	Cover Girl	Alt, Karen	108.2
11	7072	Maddie	Bradford, Bob	130.2
12	6992	She Be Blind II	Penwell Corbin	172.4
13	6606	T Bone	Parish, Andrew	186.2
14	7182	Wus N Pus	Perkins , Rowan	208.0
15	7162	Hurrying Angel	North, Dan	236.0

Pagan Wins Highpoint!

Congratulations to Norman Brown and the crew of his Bermuda 40 – Pagan! Norman and his crew won 1st place for Class B and the season over-all Highpoint Trophy.

Pagan won this year because of the strong skills of the crew, but also for the dedication of making every race over the season. We could always count on Pagan to be out on the course and regardless she managed to find her way to a good finish.

We will have more updates on the over-all season results in the next couple days.

Marshall

Wed Night Sailing - This is a good thing

Jeff from Red Dog writes in:

Thank you for putting this web-group together. You all did a great job this year.
Jeff/Red-Dog 102

No problem, Jeff. We have all the information, we just need a better way to get it out to everyone. Hopefully we can use these two sites together and make all the information available.

Here in the Wednesday Night Sailing blog, we can give updates and allow people to add their comments.

In the more formal Wednesday Night Sailing group, we can have broadcast emails and files available for review and download. There you can find the most current entry forms, sailing instructions, and notice of race.

Hopefully we can distribute results as well as making them available in the files section of the group.

Marshall

St Michaels WNS - Awards Party November 15

Hello Wednesday Night racers!

Remember that our awards party is this coming Saturday November 15, 2008, beginning at 6PM at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's steamboat building auditorium.

As in previous years, admission to the event is a covered dish. BYOB (mixers & ice provided).

If you were the recipient of a perpetual trophy, and still have it, PLEASE contact me as soon as possible! Any questions or concerns, please let me know. Please spread the word to crews & others.

Also, check out our fledgling "website." We encourage everyone to subscribe to the group, which will ensure you get all notifications related to St Michaels Wednesday Night Racing!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sm-wns/

If you have any pictures to share, please email them to me
(sailinggal71@yahoo.com)

On behalf of the WNR 2008 Steering Committee,
Mariana Lesher

St Michaels WNS Awards Party

Hello Wednesday Night racers!

Please mark your calendars for our awards party, Saturday November 15, 2008, beginning at 6PM at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's Steamboat Building auditorium.

As in previous years, admission to the event is a covered dish. BYOB (mixers & ice provided).

If you were the recipient of a perpetual trophy, and still have it, PLEASE contact me as soon as possible to arrange its prompt return.

Any questions or concerns, please let me know. Please spread the word!

I look forward to seeing everyone on November 15.

On behalf of the WNS 2008 Steering Committee,
Mariana Lesher

2008 Results and Scratch Sheets available

Well, since this is a blog, we can't post all the result and scratch sheet files for the year, but we can post all of them on the Yahoo!Groups WNS site. If you sign up for the group, you can see all the files and receive posts sent to the group. Don't worry, only official posts are allowed.

The results are all in Word files so you can browse each week. The scratch sheets are all there as PDF files too. Check out the files here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sm-wns/files/

For those of you who haven't seen scratch sheets before, they are just the forms we use on the race committee to record courses, observations, reports, mark positions, times and (most importantly) the finishes!

St. Michaels Wednesday Night Sailing

Why, yes! There are two sites. This site is a blog of the announcements about Wednesday Night Sailing in St Michaels.

But there is also a Yahoo!Group here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sm-wns/

If you sign up for the group, you can see pictures, files, and even receive emails when something is new. Don't worry, we moderate all emails. Follow this blog, or check out the group.

Welcome to the WNS information Blog!

Welcome to the St. Michaels Wednesday Night Sailing informational blog.

Check back frequently for updates to the sailing instructions, race results, last minute changes (like cancellations) and more!