23 November Frost Bite 1

Not so much Frost Bite 1 as Monsoon 1 !!
It was a miserable wet start to this series with not much wind either.
With the wind in a tricky NNE direction Nev set a short beat (or drift) up to 6 as the first mark.
There were only 10 boats starting and three of these were deemed to be over the line when the start gun went. Newton & Ellen (Laser 2000) and Peter S (Byte) returned to restart, but David C (Laser) pushed on as he was not convinced that he was over the line.
The first man to finish was Steve P (505) followed by David C and then Curtis, however on handicap the winner would be David C with Curtis 2nd and Newton & Ellen 3rd.
David C was disqualified as he did not return when adjudged to be over the line at the start.
He subsequently lodged a protest on the grounds that as no recall flag was flown he believed that he was not being recalled.
This raises an interesting issue, as if it was a general recall all boats would have to restart.
However if it is an individual recall only the boats that are actually over the line need to restart. The problem is how does the SOOD identify and inform those boats. The pragmatic approach would be to simply shout out the sail numbers or the names of the helms, but this does not appear to be an option within the racing rules. However this pragmatic approach could create another problem in that it could be an advantage to be the first named offender as he would have first notice of the requirement to return, compared to say the second or third offender!
Time to dig out the rules book and inform the OOD teams what they should do in these circumstances ?