Team Racing
Team racing uses two teams of three (or sometimes two) boats. The aim of a race is to get the best finishing position for as many of your team's boats as possible. Indeed, it is possible for your team to loose a race even if you finish first.
Each boat is given a number of points for it's finishing position in a race, ie 1 point for first place, 2 points for second etc. The team whose total score is less than 10 points wins the race. This adds the extra dimension to team racing, as for instance a team scoring a 2nd, a 3rd, and a 4th will beat its opposing teams 1st, 5th and 6th.
So you see, there is no point leading a race if the rest of your team is at the tail end of the fleet. Each team member must therefore help his teammates to get and protect a winning combination using both their sailing ability and the team racing rules.
To police the race on the water, a set of jury boats with on the water umpires tails the fleet. Any transgression of the rules may be protested as usual and if no penalty is taken, the incident may be appealed to the watching jury boat who will rule on the matter, giving a penalty to the guilty party (which, be warned, may be the protesting yacht) or declaring 'no incident'.
Racing usually starts with a league where a team races every other team in its group once or more. Then, the best teams from each group go into knockout stages. Knockout races are usually decided by the best of three or five races.
Racing is held in colour-coded boats, supplied by some of the competing colleges.
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