Page 101 - Misconduct a Reference for Race Officials

RACING RULES GUIDANCE

SCORING

(GUIDANCE ON THE APPLICATION & OPERATION OF RRS APPENDIX A)

Authority and Responsibility

Rule 90.3(a) gives the race committee responsibility for scoring a race or series. The rule
stipulates that the race committee “shall” do so using the Low Points System of Appendix A
unless the notice of race or the sailing instructions specify some other scoring system.
Because the rule allows for other scoring systems to be specified, if that is done it is not a
rule change. Furthermore, if no other system is specified, the Low Points System and the
other parts of Appendix A are the default systems and need not be specified.

Rule 44.3(c) states how a Scoring Penalty is to be calculated and the way in which such
scores are integrated into the race scoring. All the other rules relating to scoring are included
in rule 90 and Appendix A.

Methodology

Most scoring is dealt with by various, widely available, computerised systems. While,
therefore, organising authorities and race committees do not need to be fully conversant with
the details, they do need to understand the principles of scoring in order to ensure that the
program or manual system being used does score the race or series as they require.

Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions

Except for a single-race event, the notice of race or the sailing instructions must state the
number of races scheduled and the number required to be completed to constitute the series
(rule A1). The number of discards to be allowed need not be stated, in which case the
default value is one excluded race score (rule A2.1). If the number of discards is different,
then this must be stated (rules J1.2(14) and J2.1(9)).

Appendices K (Notice of Race Guide) and L (Sailing Instructions Guide), at K13 and L17,
provide the wordings to be used covering various alternatives. The wordings are identical
and need only to appear in one of the two documents.

Basic Information

The basic data used for scoring is a boat’s finishing position in a race.

In a non-handicap race this will be the boat’s place when crossing the finish line in
compliance with the definition Finish. In a handicap race the boat’s finishing position will be
determined from her corrected time under the rating or handicap system used for the race
(the ‘class rules’ under (d) in the definition Rules), (rule A3).

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