Topics of conversation between sailors often spiral out of control towards argument. The beauty of that lack of control is the healthy variety of themes the conversations produce. For whatever reason, the topic most striking on our list this week is where and how it is appropriate to exonerate yourself on the racecourse by means of penalty turns. When, where and how you spin a circle on the racecourse can drastically change not only your race but also those around you. Here’s the scenario that started the argument.
Touching a leeward mark:
If we touch a mark, there is only one way to exonerate yourself: sail clear of your competition and make a one turn penalty including one tack and one gybe (as outlined in RRS 31). As my columns try to point out, the simple explanation is often more intricate than we think. There are a thousand circumstances that can change and complicate the common penalty turn. A great example comes when a boat running on starboard gybe hits a leeward mark with its boom as she is rounding it to port. She then begins to turn around the mark and, in doing so, gybes, turns up to closehauled, and tacks. Has she completed her penalty turn? Does that gybe around the mark count towards her “one-turn penalty with one tack and one gybe?”
Monday Morning Tactician Says: In the real world we don’t round marks entirely by ourselves all that often, so it is unlikely that a boat in this scenario can remain clear of other boats while exonerating herself in such a way. That said, it seems legitimate that her gybe as she turns around the mark should count towards her total of “one tack and one gybe.” Likewise, the tack onto starboard, so long as it comes in a continuous turn, should also count towards that total. That would leave us to believe that a boat in this situation will have completed her penalty turn and exonerated herself from the situation. Just because the maneuver was relatively normal looking in the sense that we see people gybe at the leeward mark and then tack away quite often, does not mean that it does not fit the parameters of the definition of a “one-turn penalty” listed in Rule 31.2.
RRS 31.2 reads: “A boat that has broken 31.1 (touched a mark) may, after getting well clear of other boats as soon as possible, take a penalty by promptly making one turn including one tack and one gybe.” Analysis of this rule leads me to believe that the penalty turn taken by the boat in the situation described above was legal. Getting “well clear of other boats” is a very very grey area of the racing rules. A boat is Keeping Clear, per the definition, when the boats around her do not have to take any avoiding action to prevent a collision. As long as the boat in our scenario does not get too close to anybody during her gybe and by the time she completed her tack onto starboard, she is exonerated from her foul according to the rules.
Following the same logic, here is a different scenario: a boat’s skipper sailing into a weather mark on port tack leans too far back and brushes the mark with his shoulder as he goes past. If that boat then tacks around the mark and performs a gybe as he turns downwind, then he should be exonerated from his foul thanks to the “one turn penalty” described in RRS 31.2.
Certainly, the counterpoint is that these two scenarios both show a flaw in the penalty system. The commonly taught “360 degree turn” is replaced with “one-turn penalty including a tack and a gybe.” In sailboat fleetracing today, a sailor wanting to clear himself from hitting a mark has to only comply “one turn” definition in order to be exonerated. Unfortunately, the penalty is not as severe as perhaps intended by the rule writers. But, the sailors have no other way to compete than with the rules that we have.
