Rules Review at The Yacht Club

Yesterday I went to the club to facilitate a new-rules discussion. The sun was out the lake was sparkling, wind sufferers were zipping around and I was inside being distracted by them. It would have been cold, but a fun day for the season’s first sail, but first things first.

I’m getting more comfortable with the changes to the rules. I’ve read them, read Dave Perry’s book, gone through his quiz book (I’m really glad it wasn’t graded), gone through the Speed and Smarts quiz (Jay got most of them right? True or False?), written out a summary of the changes and now led a discussion on them. For me, learning is a multimedia experience, and what I’m missing is the tactile, hands-on, experience.

A couple of the participants in the discussion yesterday said they wouldn’t really get the rules until they experienced them on the water, but I have a regatta on May 9^th and that isn’t the time to be trying to figure out the rules. I’m jealous of the frost-biters who have had a winter to integrate them.

With no water under me, I’ve been spending time visualizing rules situations. It really is a good substitute for wet-learning.

Yesterday’s discussion wasn’t aimed at new racers but they were certainly welcome and what I saw was some deer-in-the-headlights looks. I had to repeat a couple of times that learning the rules was an iterative process, and that works because new racers rarely are aggressive enough to push themselves into spots where a detailed knowledge of the rules is crucial.

Two weeks from last Saturday I will put on a basics-of-racing seminar, that one will keep the rules simple.

What the club is looking for is for people to hear there are rules and know there are resources you can use to learn them. It is also important that the club keeps a culture that the rules are important to playing the game well and safely.