downwind etiquette?

In a regatta this summer a good sailor got angry with other racers for sailing above him downwind and taking his air. He got pretty bent out of shape at more than several sailors. We talked afterwards and he said it wasn't appropriate and that where he was from "everyone just sails their line." Is this truly bad etiquette as he insists or simply competitive racing?
 
Different fleets obviously have differing styles depending on the overall skills of the sailors. If someone is going to sail a different venue against new people, they can't get all pissy if there is a different etiquette. After all, the point is to win the race. And if he can't handle someone taking his air, he isn't that good a sailor.
 
So if the only way to overtake him down wind is to let him have your air, no wonder he usually wins ;). When I occasionally travel to other locations, I sail on the principle - "Don't Annoy the Locals". It's usually the best way, and easier to get a drink bought for you.
 
Sorry the guy needs a reality check. If you are racing then it is perfectly acceptable to sail above/behind him and take his wind. It is then down to him to do something about it not to get pissy with you for trying to overtake him.

On the water as long as you stay within the rules when racing people cannot have any complaints. Perhaps chatting at the bar afterwards might help? For him to say 'everyone just sails their line' my response would be 'well my line was to try and get above you and overtake you'.....
 
Trying to talk people behind you into not sailing higher then you is fairly common (along the lines of , "I'll never let you pass to windward and we'll both just end up sailing extra distance and cost us both distance to those around us") and usually works, but getting angry about it and/or not knowing how to defend against it other then getting angry (pretty easy to jibe away or sail by the lee and create a clear lane) is the sign of someone who just hasn't figured out the whole game, aka a wanker...
 
i'm pretty sure it is not what this guy was doing but i have heard that some people will yell at you when you are covering them as a technique to get you to stop covering them . sometimes it can scare people off... it worked on me the first time someone tried;)
 
pretty hard not to sail over any boats when you've got 40 boats sailing down the same short downwind leg. His response was to quickly head up and tap the leeward corner of the "offending" boat. I've never before witnessed someone trying to get ahead purely by forcing others to do circles. After seeing him do this a third time I decided to stay the heck away...so I guess he got what he wanted.
 
<quote> His response was to quickly head up and tap the leeward corner of the "offending" boat.</quote>

Surely you can't do that? OK the overtaking/windward boat does need to stay clear however once you have an overlap you cant deviate from your proper course to force a collision.

Isn't it somewhere in the rules that both boats have responsibilty for avoiding collision and that you cant force a collision unfairly?
 
Surely you can't do that? OK the overtaking/windward boat does need to stay clear however once you have an overlap you cant deviate from your proper course to force a collision.

Isn't it somewhere in the rules that both boats have responsibilty for avoiding collision and that you cant force a collision unfairly?

If the windward boat established and overlap and he is less than 2 BL to windward then the leeward boat can luff the windward boat BUT he must give the windward boat time to react he can just luff up hard and claim the WW boat did not keep clear. If he delibrately hit the WW boat when it was easy (and reasonable) to avoid a collision then he is at risk of being chucked for causing an avoidable collision.

If I had the time I would dig out the relevant rules for this but I am a little tied up at work.

My advise...get a rule book and read it and go to the following website and play through the scenarios http://game.finckh.net/indexe.htm.

There is nothing wrong with sailing within the rules, especially at a regatta. In a local race at you local club there may be some etiquette that the locals follow but racing is racing. At my local club we race hard but fair. Normally if there is a dispute the people concerned sit down and chat about it. Only rarely do we resort to protest (but you should not be afriad of calling a protest, it is nothing personal it is for both people to clarify the rules).
 
thats racing, if someone takes your air deal with it, getting upset will slow you down, the best sailors in the world aren't the best because they complain the other sailors take their wind
 
Here's the thing with the rules - it's knowing when to use them to your advantage and know when to just sit back and sail your boat. I can see aggressively stealing air or taking somebody up if there is a reason. You might be trying to gain an adventageous position at a mark rounding, or it is the last race and you need to finish ahead of this one boat to win. There are other factors, too. If some guy really wants the inside position at the gybe mark but I think I can take them upwind, I let them have the inside lane.
 
Here's the thing with the rules - it's knowing when to use them to your advantage and know when to just sit back and sail your boat. I can see aggressively stealing air or taking somebody up if there is a reason. You might be trying to gain an adventageous position at a mark rounding, or it is the last race and you need to finish ahead of this one boat to win. There are other factors, too. If some guy really wants the inside position at the gybe mark but I think I can take them upwind, I let them have the inside lane.

Tactically, whether I am better than them upwind or not I would never easily give someone an inside advantage you just lose too much overall and you may find yourself pinned on the wrong side of the course by them.

Always better to anticipate them coming and push up to keep your air clear before bearing back down to the mark when you hit the zone. Or bearing away hard if you can see better pressure coming to keep your lane open and your round uncompromised.

What you must remember is that if you luff a windward boat who has established an overlap from astern you can take them right the way up to head to wind but you must give them time to respond so a nice smooth luff. If they do not respond then hail (although this is not required in the rules). If they refuse then do not deliberately give them a tap but simply call protest. There does not need to be contact to prove a boat did not keep clear (see Ben Ainslie getting chucked in R1 of the 2004 (I think) Olympics when the french guy, (Lobert if memory serves) protested him even thogh there was no deviation from either boat and no contact).
 
thats racing, if someone takes your air deal with it, getting upset will slow you down, the best sailors in the world aren't the best because they complain the other sailors take their wind
Well said by LaserXD. I am deninitely a racing neophyte but know that in any competition, be it business or sports, it is the person who keeps his head, controls his emotions, and learns from any experience (winning or losing) that wins in the end. Realistically, "the end" may take a long time, but I believe that by adopting this philosophy one will also earn the respect of his competitors.

Last week I was racing a guy who started with Lasers when he was in high school (he's 49 and I am 52) and he natually smoked me just about every time. In one race though, I got a really good start and was ahead of him at the windward mark, but he got past me at the gybe mark with an inside move because I didn't use the correct rounding strategy based on his position relative to mine. Over beers later, he said that he probably should've given me a break, and I said, "if you cut me any slack, then I won't learn anything." The bottom line - I'll never intentionally let him or anyone else do that to me again, and you don't learn that kind lesson by whining.
 
There's 2 roads to take on the DW leg. The high road and the low road. You establish your line right after rounding the mark. If you choose the low road the high road guys will go above you. The trick is to go low enough to let the high roaders take their line without blanketing you. In breezy/wavey conditions the s-turns pretty much take high road/low road away and its all by the lee speed. What burns me is when I clearly establish a high road course and someone wants to try to go by my weather side even after I've sent a clear signal of "I'm not going to let you pass above me!" by steering a sharp luff to weather when they try to make a move. I'll always tell them "I'm not letting you pass above me!" and will sail back to a close hauled course if necessary to prove my point. Some people get so hell bent on passing to weather they'll sail twice the extra distance and lose 10 other boats in the process. Thing is the leeward passing lane is 90% of the time the best passing lane anyway.
 
Isn't the point of being competitive in sailing is to be able to take someone else's wind?

No. The point is to optimize your own finishing position in the series. Sometimes this may mean you need to take the wind of a close competitor in order to overtake him. Other times you may be better off sailing your own race, going for the side of the course that has the most wind or most favorable current and passing whole groups of boats, instead of getting into a luffing match with one other sailor and letting a whole bunch of boats pass both of you.
 
No. The point is to optimize your own finishing position in the series. Sometimes this may mean you need to take the wind of a close competitor in order to overtake him. Other times you may be better off sailing your own race, going for the side of the course that has the most wind or most favorable current and passing whole groups of boats, instead of getting into a luffing match with one other sailor and letting a whole bunch of boats pass both of you.

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
No. The point is to optimize your own finishing position in the series. Sometimes this may mean you need to take the wind of a close competitor in order to overtake him. Other times you may be better off sailing your own race, going for the side of the course that has the most wind or most favorable current and passing whole groups of boats, instead of getting into a luffing match with one other sailor and letting a whole bunch of boats pass both of you.

Like Fred has described many times, our sport is a chess game.
 
No. The point is to optimize your own finishing position in the series. Sometimes this may mean you need to take the wind of a close competitor in order to overtake him. Other times you may be better off sailing your own race, going for the side of the course that has the most wind or most favorable current and passing whole groups of boats, instead of getting into a luffing match with one other sailor and letting a whole bunch of boats pass both of you.

Well said! I remember the last Wednesday even race this year, I needed to keep a boat behind me as I knew if he was still behind me at the mark I would be able to beat him over all. by choosing my tactic carefully and forcing him around the outside of me I held him off until the finish.

This was in a pursuit race though and we were racing for positiuon in the last few minutes with no other boats around us. Were it a handicap race I would have done it differently.
 

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