10/1/2016 1:38:33 PM
by Andrew Alberti
Two months ago I talked about barging. This month, I want to compare the situation of barging at the committee boat with a luffing situation further down the line. Before I do this, I need to provide some context. In races with a large number of boats on the starting line, such as Optimists, Lasers, 420’s and even J/105’s, it is quite common to have so many boats over the line that the race committee has to use a general recall. In these circumstances, special starting flags such as the black flag (rule 30.3) are used. When the black flag goes up four minutes before the start and then comes down one minute before the start, any boat over the line during the last minute before the start is disqualified. This provides a very strong incentive not to be over in the last minute. The incentive may be so strong that boats are tempted to break other rules.
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