Great Example of Countback RRS A8.1 and A8.2

The Kerikeri Radio Yacht Squadron is one of my favourite places to sail. Their annual Northland IOM Championships are very popular, and the venue is fabulous. They also have very competitive club racing, with ties becoming commonplace. Last weekend they had a 3-way points tie for first place. The ties were resolved using the Racing Rules of Sailing: A8.1 and A8.2. I thought you might be interested in how it was resolved. Here are the results:

84, 92 and 56 all finished with 13 points (after discards).

Resolving 2nd and 3rd was done using Racing Rules of Sailing 2017-2020 “A8 SERIES TIES A8.1 If there is a series-score tie between two or more boats, each boat’s race scores shall be listed in order of best to worst, and at the first point(s) where there is a difference the tie shall be broken in favour of the boat(s) with the best score(s). No excluded scores shall be used.” 92 had two first places; 56 had one. So that tie was resolved in favour of 92.

Resolving 1st and 2nd was more tricky. Each boat had two first places and one second place. 92 had four 3rd places to 84’s three 3rd places; but look at the last sentence of A8.1 “No excluded scores shall be used.” Race 4 was an excluded score for 92, so that 3rd place was not included in the A8.1 tie-breaker. After, applying A8.1 boats 92 and 84 were still tied.

To resolve 1st and 2nd required A8.2 “If a tie remains between two or more boats, they shall be ranked in the order of their scores in the last race. Any remaining ties shall be broken by using the tied boats’ scores in the next-to-last race and so on until all ties are broken. These scores shall be used even if some of them are excluded scores.” In the final race 84 came 1st and 92 came 3rd. So A8.2 was used to break the tie in favour of 84.

The Afleet scoring app uses both levels of count-back, and was able to break the ties. We’ve done the work so you don’t have to (see www.afleet.app ). Nice when a plan comes together!

If you are ever in New Zealand, take a trip north of Auckland, and visit Kerikeri. Even better – visit on a sailing day! Meantime, check out the videos on this site: http://www.kerikeriradiosailing.co.nz/iom/ 

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