SAIL No. Markings

[Daesal]

Hi.
Just asking this for a friends daughter. She is currently raceing in the 420 (dingy) nationals.
The sail no. of the boat she is useing is 50168.
Today she was out raceing and got a "D.N.C." on her results.
She is in a borrowed boat and while the genuine no. is ***68 , which is in red numerals on the sail. Someone,for some reason best known to them has added a black line above the six. This has the effect of looking like red numeral reading ***68, while the black bit of tape makes it look like ***88. Hence the committee boat said that there was no boat on the course with sail no. ***68, (just a boat with sail no. ***88 written in two colours). Can anyone tell me if this is a correct judgement in the rules of raceing ?
It would be great if someone could enlighten me.Its been a long time since I was raceing dingys.

 

[lw395]

The 420 class is quite high profile and takes itself seriously.
There will be a lot of boats with very similar sail numbers, because the boats have short competitive lives.
It's never a good idea to have faulty sail numbers, particularly without the agreement of the race committee.
The only reason you add bits of tape to a number is to change it.
I've worked on nationals level committee boats, we record the numbers we see, we have no interest in excluding anyone unfairly, but unless you're way ahead or way behind, we only get a quick glimpse of the numbers as the boats start and finish.
Having duff or obscure numbers could be seen as an attempt to avoid being ID'd as over the line at the start. Not clever.

 

[Daesal]

Thank you for quick reply and clearing that up. That does make a lot of sense when there are a lot of boats out on the start line. I was just wondering about the 2 different colours on the numbers too. and if sail no.s have to be wholly one colour. It is a lesson that everything should be checked twice before going out on the sea.

 

[lw395]

Thank you for quick reply and clearing that up. That does make a lot of sense when there are a lot of boats out on the start line. I was just wondering about the 2 different colours on the numbers too. and if sail no.s have to be wholly one colour. It is a lesson that everything should be checked twice before going out on the sea.

With classes like Lasers, with long numbers, it's common to put the first two digits in red, then the last four in black. In many fleets the competetive boats are all a similar age so the first number or two is common. Some classes have rules about this.

 

[savageseadog]

I have some brand new self adhesive sail numbers to sell, dinghy sized.

 

[lw395]

I have some brand new self adhesive sail numbers to sell, dinghy sized.

Are they much cheaper than £1.50 each?
Next time I buy a Laser, I ought to check the random left over numbers I've got and buy the right numbered boat to use them up.
Where did all those 7s come from?