Fisher's View: Is there a serpent in this Garden of Eden?

6:12 AM Sat 7 Feb 2009 GMT

'Bob Fisher' Daniel Forster

There is absolutely no doubt that the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series is as close to perfect a regatta as there has ever been.

One look at the smiles on the sunburned faces of the ten crews would bear witness enough, and in addition there are the crowds of spectators along the shores of the Waitemata and on the myriad of spectator craft carefully marshalled around the extremities of the course.

Yet there is one factor that seems odder than wearing brown shoes with a dinner suit - the scoring of penalties when boats touch.

The amendment to the match racing rule 8.6 reads: 'When the umpires observe that there is a 'hard contact' (defined as contact between any combination of hull, spars, standing rigging) between boats they shall, in consultation with at least one other umpire, impose a penalty of at least one point on the penalised boat and may (emphasis added) impose a half-point penalty on the other without a hearing.'

OK, so it is in the Sailing Instructions but it defies logic to penalise the offended party - in the first day's racing of Round Robin 1 when Alinghi met the Greek Challenge, the Greeks were penalised for hitting the stern of Alinghi (where there are 'Bull Bars' to prevent serious damage) and were penalised and fined a point so that their score at the end of the day was minus one. No action was taken on Alinghi who went on to score a point for the race win.

Fast forward to the second day of Round Robin 2 when there was a 'brushed' contact between the sterns of BMW Oracle Racing and Team Origin. The umpires deemed that BMW Oracle was in the wrong, making them do a penalty turn during the race and deducting a point from their score, but also applied a half-point penalty to Team Origin, the boat that had been exonerated of the blame for the contact. It was all the more galling for the Brits as they suffered a gear breakdown when leading the race and were forced to retire, copping the half-point penalty as an additional burden.

Such are the exigencies of a regatta in borrowed boats, but they are only a minor setback in this festival of fun racing that has helped to wipe away the trauma of the main event for which these boats were created. Racing at close quarters has revitalised the crews and provided an opening for new syndicates - it came too when Auckland is at its best.

by Bob Fisher

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Fisher's View: Is there a serpent in this Garden of Eden?

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