New scoring penalty in use

The use of trackers for offshore races provides an online view to maintain interest from start to finish. While not perfect, as technical glitches can impact accuracy, the system is in place for the biennial Fastnet Race in which 337 teams started the 695 nm course from Plymouth, UK to Cherbourg, France,

Stuart Reader was watching the tracker when he noticed Rambler 88 going on the wrong side of the TSS at Fastnet Rock on their way back. As the Sailing Instructions state that it must be left to port after going around the rock, he was curious enough to send a note about it to Scuttlebutt HQ.

The mystery was quickly solved when the race results showed Rambler 88 having scored an NSC – not sailed course. In this report on RacingRulesOfSailing.org, it explains this new scoring penalty:

The Racing Rules of Sailing 2021-24 introduces a new category of scoring, ‘NSC’, to be applied by the race committee without a hearing to boats that do not sail the course, by inserting ‘did not sail the course’ into the lists of categories to be scored by the race committee without a hearing in rules A5.1 and A5.2.

These changes were made according to Proposal 4 of Submission 139-18 considered at the 2018 and World Sailing Annual Conference which included 4 parts:

Part 1: Insert a definition of ‘sail the course’ based on the string part of rule 28.2.
Part 2: Delete the ‘string part’ of rule 28.2, and base rule 28.1 on the newly defined term ‘sail the course’
Part 3: Insert a requirement that a boat must ‘sail the course’ into the definition of finish.
Part 4: Amend rules A4.2 and A5 (new rules A5.1 and A5.2) to include a requirement to score a boat that did not sail the course [N]SC without a hearing.

The insertion, by Part 3, of ‘sail the course’ into the definition of finish was reversed by Submission 129-19.

Parts 1, 2, and 4 were implemented in the published version of the new rules.

For more on this topic, click here.