Tactical thinking on the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS)

June 8th, 2007

By Mick Ralph
Professional coach since 1985. 3 world championships Tom King (Mirror) Roger Perret/Teague Csislowski (420) Mat and Dan Belcher (420)

When we go racing we use strategy and tactics to help us win.

Strategy is the overall bigger picture and includes such things as wind shifts and tides. To be a successful strategist requires the sailor to have prior and current information and knowledge about weather and tides, amongst other things.
Tactics are the manoeuvres we do, to try to make the most of the rules, for example, inside overlap and buoyroom at a wing mark. It follows therefore, that to be a top tactician the sailor needs to have prior knowledge and a very good understanding of the RRS. Unfortunately most sailors put the rules into the ‘boring’ or ‘too hard basket’ and seem to just ignore the rules until a crisis is encountered.

As we all know, the average win/loss ratio in the protest room is about 40%, so we really don’t want to get into that crisis in the first place. Imagine the sailor who doesn’t know the rules and launches his boat into an inside gap at a wing mark and feels aggrieved when it’s pointed out to him that he didn’t have an inside overlap in time. Ignorance is no defence and the onus is on the sailor to understand ALL the rules.

My attitude is that I find studying the rules in detail gives me a tactical edge, from the comfort of my armchair, and without getting wet. I enjoy doing anything in sailing that will give me an edge! I want to start with Rule 10 which is the most basic and ‘well known’ rule in the book. Simple really, a port tack boat has to keep clear of a starboard tack boat. In reality it is not so simple and Olympic medals have been lost on Rule 10 incidents. There are actually huge tactical considerations about this ‘simple’ rule.

For starters, the port tack boat is obliged to keep clear and to keep watch. The starboard boat is obliged to keep watch and avoid collisions (especially resulting in damage), but I want to go back a step and consider why both boats are on opposite tacks in the first place. Some strategic consideration has the starboard tack boat heading left and the port tack boat heading right. If you were the starboard boat and a port tacker is looming you have only 3 options. You can tack, cross ahead or cross behind. You have to ask yourself the question “why am I on this tack anyway?” If you are sailing a strategy that has you lifting and heading out of the adverse current and into more pressure the last thing you want is to have to tack. But wait you say, “Why should I tack if I’m on starboard?” Well, if you saw the port tacker and robotically hailed starboard (as many do) you can expect a top sailor to slap a HUGE lee bow on you when he tacks to avoid you. Now you have only one option and that is to clear your air and tack. Strategically NOT good! If you had a look and could easily cross you don’t have any decision to make. If it looks very close then you have to start thinking about whether this guy IS going to lee bow you anyway. If he is a good sailor he may have been waiting for an opportunity to get onto starboard in clear air and you may look ‘tasty’.

At the top Olympic level it’s common to see the starboard tack boat hail the port boat to “hold your course’ or “your right mate, you will clear” and even sail a bit lower in the groove to encourage the guy into crossing. Hailing the port tack boat through puts the onus on the starboard tack boat to keep clear and the onus on the port tack boat to not tack and to hold his course.
Conversely if you were a port tack boat heading out of adverse current and into more pressure, on a lift, there would be no logical reason to lee bow a starboard tacker. Watch any Sabot race to see the best automatic lee bows! They do it well but they rarely think of the strategic consequences.

Consider the situation where you are the starboard tack boat getting headed and heading for less pressure and you have a close port tacker looming. You need to be able to get onto port tack in clear wind and if you were in a Sabot race you would just hail starboard and get the automatic leebow which now sends him off on the headed tack and you can tack and head where you want to go. It doesn’t always work out like this but I’m sure you all remember situations that are similar.
So next time have a think before you hail, or lee bow!

Cheers
Mick