Hosting information

Information to the sailors from the host

It is useful to inform the sailors on the server before start that the races contribute to this ELO ranking. You may add a line about this on your autohotkey-setup together with your server rules.

Rules

When hosting races with protest option (rules mode RRS), it is recommended to do this in the following way, which is to be considered default:

• All cancellations requests should be accepted (refusing to cancel a bad pen gives you DSQ)

• Manual protests possible on the water by writing "P boatname"

• No need to hail protest for a situation involving a cancellation request (but must follow the next instruction)

• Protests / redress requests to be informed to the host within 1 minute after finishing

• Redress for disconnections: Remove from the race if it happened in a good position on the first leg. Otherwise base it on position in the race.

• In case of doubt for a situation which involves a VSK pen, the benefit of the doubt will go against the penalized boat

• In case of doubt for a situation without a VSK pen, no boats will be disqualified

When hosting races without protest option (rules mode NPC or Custom), you still may DSQ boats for violations of RRS Rule 2 - Fair Sailing. Please check the information page for a definition. No need to inform the sailors about this in the race chat. It is basically the same as kicking a skipper from the server that you observed barging's while racing, but now you can also take the ones you did not see with your own eyes, but maybe got a report about in the chat. Note: It is not recommended to kick boats from ELO races, as they will not appear on the score board. Instead DSQ them after the race and kick them from the prestart of the following race.

General

• Host on "normal" race courses. If the course has some fixed wind shifts or main direction different than the 8 standard directions, inform the sailors about this on a course intro (or course name).

• Have a set of hosting rules and make sure to follow them fair and strictly.

• Upload all races that are launched under this system.

Some technical instructions

• Preferably the host  shall have the latest VSK patch installed, which will give more information to the result files (xml-type), and also solves the problem with special characters in boat names. But the system also works with csv-files. Here are links to download the patch files :
  VSK5 | VSK5Online | VSKAC32
  Please note that these zip files include a new vsk exe file that should replace the existing vsk exe file in the vsk program folder. They are not install files.

• One thing to note is that the host shall not save replays or do other things in the menu's while boats are crossing the finish line, as this lead to boats being left out of the result file.