Offshore regatta scofflaws you’re screwed: certified tracking is coming!

Once again this year, as we told you, Rome for One/For Two/For All was the scene of controversy. Some boats were accused of sailing in areas forbidden by the race instructions, cutting the course and in many cases gaining an advantage and making it to the podium. That scoundrels exist is a fact. Even at the last ARC, it seems that a great many people “muddied” without restraint and managed to get away with it.

PINCH THE SMART ONES? IT’S SO EASY.
The real challenge is to pinch them, and there is a tool that is within everyone’s reach that still, in the digital age, is not being adequately used.

We are talking about tracking. At present, it is necessary that the sneak (guilty of cutting the course or turning on the engine for some sections, when this can be guessed from the route followed) is first protested by one of the competitors, so if no one protests the jury cannot intervene.

A system that we think needs to be changed, the dignity of offshore trials depends on it: the jury should step in and do so immediately, as in other sports (see Formula One, with the figure of the race director who watches for misconduct in real time and possibly imposes penalties) or in other formats, such as the America’s Cup and Olympic regattas (with so-called Umpires).

CERTIFIED TRACKING
The nature of offshore and offshore racing makes tracking crucial, which we believe should be taken as evidence, in the context of protests made by the jury.

Of course, with the necessary margins of error and tolerance (just as one does with a speed camera, to be clear) and applying criteria of common sense and reasonableness.

We welcomed the statement from the Circolo Nautico di Riva di Traiano, organizer of Roma per Tutti: “A first initiative will be put in place starting with the upcoming Rome/Giraglia,” it reads, “where the tracking will be certified and the intent will be to make it immediately usable by racing competitors to check their tracking in relation also to any no-go zones that will be appropriately represented and, subsequently, as a tool that can be used to enable any necessary fact-finding. The technical terms of the controls and tolerances under the system will be stated in the Sailing Instructions, which will be stated for each individual race“.

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