Prescriptions for Bumper-Car Syndrome
Prescriptions for Bumper-Car Syndrome
Dick Rose has a few remedies for preventing routine collisions. "From the Experts" in our April 2008 issue.
When it comes to rules compliance, fleets have their ups and downs. I have seen fleets cycle through years when most everyone dutifully does their turns if they foul, and no one rocks or pumps to excess, and then experience years when there is lots of contact, lots of prohibited kinetics, and very few actual protests. I've received many letters and telephone calls from competitors looking for ways to increase rules compliance in their fleet.
No fleet is perfect. A few misjudgments and, therefore, rule infractions are bound to occur. New sailors often don't know the rules well. However, if a bad case of "bumper-car syndrome" develops in a fleet, it can really hurt participation. You don't want fleet members selling their boats because they've experienced too much aggression or damage, and you sure don't want to hear someone comment about your fleet, "Don't join that fleet-no one sails by the rules."
I hope rules compliance in your fleet is high, and that you have no need for the advice I'm about to give. However, even if compliance is high today, it might be a good idea to save this article-I've seen rules compliance disintegrate in fleets that for years had very high compliance.
Bumper-car syndrome can have many causes. Some lie with the competitors and some with race management. Let's first look at a few ways that competitors can be at the root of the syndrome:
1. A fleet with sailors who do not know the rules very well grows in size, but keeps racing on courses of the same length with the result that there are more rules confrontations and more multi-boat incidents in which it is difficult to apply the rules.
2. Several new sailors who hardly know the rules at all join your fleet.
3. There are one or two "bad apples"-sailors who blatently disregard the rules.
4. Competitors don't bother protesting because they don't like long protest hearings.
Now, here are some prescriptions for curing bumper-car syndrome in such cases:
1. Arrange for a course on the racing rules for your fleet. Make it long enough to do a thorough job. Consult with the US SAILING Regional Area Judge for your part of the country to find instructors. Make these sessions fun by combining them with a fleet party. Motivate each boat in your fleet to send at least one person to the course by giving some points toward the season championship to the boats that attend.
2. Appoint experienced members of your fleet who know the rules to mentor newcomers and answer rules questions.
3. Meet quietly with a few of your fleet members. Get them to agree to hail "Protest" loudly whenever they see one of the "bad apples" break a rule, and then follow through with a written protest. When several boats see one of these boats break a rule, they should all hail. A concerted effort by even a half dozen boats can make a big change in the offender's behavior in a surprisingly short time.
4. Two ways to shorten protest hearings are arbitration or mediation by an experienced judge, or streamlining protest hearings in which each party to the protest is limited to 2 minutes to present his or her case.
