Updates to 2023 NOR

Richard and I (Carliane) are your co-race chairs for the 2023 SSS season. The last couple months, we've been updating the NOR and the SIs. Richard had not been able yet to gain access to the forum so I'm posting his message below to open up this process to the wider group. Would love to hear any concerns or questions. We're happy to have a productive dialogue. Thanks!

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Carliane and I have been working on a DRAFT version of the 2023 General NOR for a while now and are in the home stretch. We'd appreciate your thoughts, if any, by 23:59 December 31 so we can get this posted early in the new year.

We have deliberately changed a good deal from the prior NOR/SSI.

Some items have only moved to new locations in the document: we're trying to put things (more or less) in the order that people will use them, and align with other "standard" NORs people are used to reading elsewhere.

We've tried to make things clearer, and simpler.

We've also tried to nail down areas that seemed ambiguous.

And we pulled in some 3BF SI wording around entry criteria and put an updated version directly into the NOR.

Credit for a lot of this work goes to our early reviewers.

Please take a look and share your thoughts, if any, by end of year, so we can post soon.

Happy Holidays, and wishing you a great 2023! Attachment 8016

"Please take a look and share your thoughts, if any, by end of year, so we can post soon."

After nearly 20 years of racing with the SSS including two SHTPs, holding board positions, helping other singlehanders with advice, loaning of gear, etc. - I happened to buy a boat with a powered halyard winch.

Why should I still race with the SSS when I'll be scored against 1-2 other boats at most, and am ineligible for perpetuals?

Bob, that is not the intent if you're not "racing" powered assisted. Is there some word smithing that you could offer to fix this? We will go back and take another stab at it, too. This part was probably the hardest to put in the right boxes.

All the powered winch language, separate divisions/scoring, etc. was added to SSS's NOR before PHRF resolved the issue by creating rating adjustments for powered winches. I have never been given a clear answer about why the language was not removed once PHRF took action. Here is what I wrote to the board over a year ago:

After SSS's efforts to segregate these boats, PHRF put a system in place to adjust their ratings. Now these boats are getting penalized twice - once in their rating and again by not being able to race in their normal (SSS) divisions. In making the new regulation, NorCal PHRF specifically wanted to avoid this outcome, stating as follows:

"The intent is that boats that are assigned a penalty for a powered winch should be sailing with non-powered boats as they have been penalized for their power, and do not need to be in a separate division, though organizing authorities can divide divisions however they want." (March, 2021 NCPHRF Minutes).

So my suggested word-smithing is that all the powered winch language be removed. Anything short of this puts the SSS in the ratings business, since they are second-guessing our PHRF committee.

I'll add: The YRA is now running Winter and regular-season shorthanded race series. YRA handles the powered winch issue the way NorCal PHRF intended, and all the powered winch boats that used to race with the SSS are now racing with YRA. Since your and Richard's intention is to better align SSS's documents with standard practice, you might look at what SSS's competition is doing.

Ok, this is helpful. Again, we weren't trying to take any major action in the rewriting of the NOR (hence, why most of the language was placed somewhere intact), but was trying to better align it with standard NORs and US Sailing guidelines. We had a few things that were policy matters that we asked the board to weigh in, but generally tried to not fiddle too much with the wording. Your point that this is addressed by YRA makes sense. I wasn't part of that discussion back then as I had taken a hiatus from SSS, but I thought this had something to do with encouraging racing by disabled sailors. That is how I see that part. Is it? Is adaptive sailing part of the PHRF process now, too?

No, this was not for adaptive sailing or encouraging racing by disabled sailors. The SSS added the powered winch language in reaction to an over-the-top implementation by an able-bodied rigger we both know. PHRF fixed the problem, the rigger took his toy and moved on, but the superfluous language remains and the SSS is losing entries because of it.
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Originally Posted by Gamayun

Please take a look and share your thoughts, if any, by end of year, so we can post soon.

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Thank you for your efforts to improve the formatting and add clarity to the NOR.

Please note that under 7.3.12 “ Educational note: Commercial Traffic has right of way on San Francisco Bay…” is technically not correct. It is a common misinterpretation of the COLREGS noted in 12.1 below. I’d suggest limiting the wording to a reminder that there can be many safety reasons for having an alternate means of propulsion readily available.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dazzler

Thank you for your efforts to improve the formatting and add clarity to the NOR.

Please note that under 7.3.12 “ Educational note: Commercial Traffic has right of way on San Francisco Bay…” is technically not correct. It is a common misinterpretation of the COLREGS noted in 12.1 below. I’d suggest limiting the wording to a reminder that there can be many safety reasons for having an alternate means of propulsion readily available.

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Thanks, Tom. "Right of way" is one of those terms that gets used a lot because everyone understands the concept, but it is not COLREGS terminology. We'll go back to the wordsmithing board. This was an example of where we were trying to balance the need for a boat to be able to quickly get out of the way of incoming traffic or avoid docked vessels when there's no wind and adverse current, and not actually requiring a motor on all boats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gamayun

Thanks, Tom. "Right of way" is one of those terms that gets used a lot because everyone understands the concept, but it is not COLREGS terminology. We'll go back to the wordsmithing board. This was an example of where we were trying to balance the need for a boat to be able to quickly get out of the way of incoming traffic or avoid docked vessels when there's no wind and adverse current, and not actually requiring a motor on all boats.

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Carliane, To be (more?) clear, the entire statement [“Commercial Traffic has right of way on San Francisco Bay…”] is wrong. I was not just pointing out the misuse of “right of way.” There is no rule that uses the term “commercial traffic.”

I absolutely agree that it’s a good idea to encourage having an alternate means of propulsion for a variety of safety reasons including staying out of restricted areas and keeping from being swept into various hazards.