Strategies for Race Officers in Challenging Conditions
Managing fleets with competitors with widely different skill/experience levels
Many clubs run racing for competitors with a wide range of skill and experience. Age will often be an unreliable guide to the skill level of sailors. Race officers are often faced with a difficult decision: the conditions are suitable for the more experienced sailors, but not for the less skilful. There might be a risk that the safety team might be overwhelmed dealing with those crews who cannot handle the conditions. The reasonable wish of the race officer would be to run racing for those sailors who would enjoy the conditions and keep the other sailors ashore.
A simple solution would be to limit racing only to adult competitors. However, this does really resolve difficulty: an experienced 16 year old ILCA or 420 crew maybe far more experienced and capable of sailing in heavy weather than an adult in their first season after coming to sailing through adult training. Furthermore, in small clubs there are many advantages in adults and young sailors being on the water at the same time/
A first recommendation would be that under-18 competitors will only be allowed to participate in racing if there is an adult, parent or guardian, present at the venue with authority over the young sailor.
How can a race officer keep less experienced sailors ashore?
1 There is no provision in RRS allowing the race committee to exclude a boat from participating in a race once the OA has accepted that boat's entry. In exceptional circumstances, the protest committee can use exclusion as a penalty. Also
RRS 3 Decision to race is clear: The responsibility for a boat’s decision to participate in a race or to continue racing is hers alone.
To resolve issues once boats are on the water, it is possible to write a sailing instructions a rule stating:
- A boat and her crew shall follow any instructions of the race committee or safety team. This may include returning to shore, or abandoning the boat.
However, once boats are divided into fleets or groups the race committee may postpone or abandon racing for any group or fleet. If boats are divided in to fleets or groups by level of experience then the race committee may keep the less experienced on shore.
This is not an original idea. The Irish Optimist class divides competitors into Regatta (effectively Novice), Junior and Senior fleets. Junior and Senior fleets. Junior and Senior fleets can be split into Gold and Silver. If necessary, the race committee can keep one of several Fleets or groups ashore.
Setting up fleets/groups: a task for the organising authority
The organising authority (OA) has the right to collect and process data concerning competitors in order to fulfil the contract between the organiser and sailors entering the event. The OA can collect information sufficient to allow competitors to be split into groups.
The OA should set out the criteria on which it will decide to which group it will categorise a crew. Such criteria might be:
- Previous results
- Sailing qualifications
- Reports from previous events
- Age
- Physical aptitude
These criteria should be made available to competitors.
- The various levels of Irish Sailing training courses can provide an indication. A crew that has recently completed a Start Racing Course would probably be placed, initially, in the lower skill/ experience group.
- The Irish Optimist Class association stipulate that at Regional and National Championship Regattas, boats will be divided into two division based on age with cut-off between Junior and Senior at 12 years old.
These divisions are divided into Gold, Silver and Bronze Fleets.
Within each division there will be a further split into Gold, Silver and Bronze Fleets. Boats will be assigned to a fleet based on the criteria and rules of management for fleet qualifications.
These rules are:
3 groups in the fleet:
Bronze (new sailors to the Fleet and those who have not won a prize).
Silver Fleet (those who have won 2 x prizes in Bronze Fleet).
Gold Fleet (those who have won 2 x prizes in Silver Fleet).
Once the OA has placed a competitor in a group, any competitor who disagrees with their grouping may request redress.
Assessing risk separately for each skill/experience group
At the same time the OA should discuss with the race management team to establish risk assessment criteria for each group. There are many examples, for instance the Finn and Snipe Masters events have an upper wind limit of 15 knots, Snipe Women events set the limit at 18 knots, Open event 23 knots.
Other local criteria should be included as necessary – expected sea state, onshore/offshore winds, water temperature…
Once a suitable risk assessment is established then the OA can direct the race committee to apply this assessment when deciding to run racing (see RRS 90.1).
Managing fleets/groups
If the race committee decides that a group of sailors should stay ashore then it is essential that this decision is clearly communicated to competitors.
It is extremely helpful to use the D flag procedure:
Flag D with one sound means ‘Boats shall not leave the [harbour][shore] until this signal is made. The warning signal will not be made before the scheduled time or less than minutes after flag D is displayed.’
By using class or group flags the race committee may release one or more groups when the safety team is in place.
Use the D flag to release from shore the groups that are going to sail. AP on shore for other fleets.
Similarly, postponement for other groups may be signalled by displaying AP, possibly over H or A. On the water, groups can be sent home.
If all groups are started and race together consider using the W flag to give tail enders a result without unduly delaying the next race. In heavy weather this should be considered a safety measure.
When the race committee signals to a boat that is still racing by displaying flag W with one sound signal:
- The boat is no longer required to sail the course (this changes RRS 28.1). The boat shall no longer continue in the race, and shall return to the starting area, or return ashore if there is no more racing;
- The race committee shall score the boat scored points determined by her place in the race when she is signalled.
Scoring as series when groups have not sailed the same number of races
Each group can be scored using as per Appendix A. If groups have started and sailed to together, there is an obvious interest in establishing an overall series ranking
If groups have sailed a different number of racing then a ranking can be established by calculating the average race score for each boat.
Based on the nett score of each boat (after discards) the average race score would be:
- Net score/number of races scored for net series score
Example:
Boat A has sailed in Group A. 11 races were sailed with the worst score excluded.
Boat B sailed in Group B. 8 races were sailed with the worst score excluded.
The nett score for both boats was 49 points.
Boat A’s average race score is 49/10 = 4.9
Boat B’s average race score is 49/7 = 7
This system has the advantage that both the responsibility for grouping competitors and the establishment of risk criteria is given to the event organiser, and is based on pre-established criteria.
The race officer must still make a decision as to whether specific groups should remain ashore, based on a pre-established and agreed risk assessment procedure.
By establishing an overall ranking based on average race scores of races actually sailed the boats that are required to stay ashore suffer no disadvantage in the overall series.
By Gordon Davies.