SO Hull, Safety and Racing Rules

[forshey99]

I must be missing something.....

Doug McAlarney touched on a point, and he might be the only one, that might possibly be the most overlooked aspect of safety in outboard racing.

the driver.

What can we do to protect the driver? Drivers who, and I'm making an educated guess here, get thrown from the boat in 99.9% of the accidents in outboard racing.
What good are carbon/kevlar sides then? I could make my cockpit sides out of 3/4" steel and they wouldn't do me a bit of good while I'm floating in the water or flying through the air. In the instances where a driver reamins in the boat, kevlar sides do have some merit, but are still likely to break and allow some penetration at which point the driver is going to sustain injury.

On to pickle tips....
Again I'm making and educated guess here, but the force trauma of a sharp tip or rounded tip at 60+mph is still going to cause significant injury. With round tips, the distribution on energy is going to be slightly better, however still above the threshold of your body to resist injury.

It's not the shape of the pickle tips causing injury.......it's the pickle tips period. If you get rid of the tips, it will be the leading edge of the tunnel and so on and so forth.

Our kevlar is great for cut-resistance, but might as well be a t-shirt for impact protection. While impact plates in jackets are great, they only provide protection for a very small percent of the body.

Kevlar sides and crushable tips are for tunnel boat racing where boats collide with boats in almost every instance. Apples and oranges to unsecured outboard drivers who are usually thrown clear and rely on helmets, life jackets, and kevlar cut suits to reduce injury.

What are we doing to increase the effectiveness of "driver" safety?
Any thoughts?


Nate

[sam]

I can answer one question: blunted pickleforks/runabout bows are less likely to break thru another boat's cockpit, a major change in the accident event.

Every change in aspect/pointy-ness is exactly related to force transmitted to the other object. Changing a point from 1 square inch to 2 square inches reduces the force to the impact area by half. Increasing to 16 square inches (4 X 4) reduces to 1/16 th ... one ton of force becomes 125 pounds per square inch. Some current pickles end up with half a square inch or less ... force that would only be 125 pounds per square inch from a 4 X 4 would be 4,000+ pounds from a very pointy boat.

[14-H]

Point vs. Something Else

And that differnce in the amount of force on the point versus being spread over several inches can be the difference in a T-bone collision between simply cracking the side of the boat or penetrating the side and the cockpit wall and imbedding the nose of the boat through the other side of the cockpit. It is good, I suppose, that we are usually ejected from the cockpit with the designs we allow currently. Ed.

[sponsonhead]

Drilling into Helmets: It ain't Rocket Science!

Unless I missed it, no one has brought up helmet restraints.

Does the helmet get damaged when putting the rivots into the helmet?

I saw this pass a while back and should have answered it then...just thought I would follow up.

Adding rivets or other accessories to a helmet is not of danger to the helmet as long as reasonable precautions are taken. For a helmet restraint, you are drilling 3-4 holes for the pop rivets and restraint d-rings near the base of the helmet. Very SMALL holes.

First, apply a small piece of masking tape over the area you are drilling to keep from scratching the helmet. Then, slowly drill the holes through the shell of the helmet, but not the soft padding. A thin piece of sheet metal can be slipped betweeen the shell and padding to help with this, if needed. Deburr and clean the holes if needed, then crank up the old Pop Riveter.

A final thought to those who worry about drilling through their helmets: Helmets are made of various high impact fiber materials or composites, not glass. They can handle the drill. Also, consider this: Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr, and every other racer you can think of that wears a Hans Device has had to add the Hans Anchors to their helmets. NONE of the Helmet Manufacturers add them on at the factory; therefore somebody is drilling into these helmets to mount the anchors.

And if a helmet that has been drilled to mount some sort of anchor or d-ring to it is good enough for those guys, I'm going to assume it will be safe enough for me.

R-19

[DougMc]

Thank you for the info.

[Andrew 4CE]

If you want to protect ther driver... there are systems out there...

http://www.motoair.com
They have jackets for skiing, jetskis, motorcycles, etc...

Something could be adapted to combine or replace the current lifejacket designs. Mustang makes coast guard approved inflatable jackets. Technology is there... just cost $$.

[hagerl8m]

Some thoughts

Overlap rule:
Adopt a version of the OPC rule. If you are overtaking a boat on the inside the overlap is established when the passing boat is cockpit to cockpit. If passing on the outside the overlap is established once the passing boat can come over with out hitting the boat being passed. Not that it’s enforced very well, since we turn a little different than say my BSR.

Break away pickles:
I do agree that some boats are unsafe in this regard. And that on hydros, which cannot turn right, and left should be building to protect drivers. But if you do mandate this rule it would cause many people to have to redo their boats, think about how much weight transfer you would have by doing this. Possible situations you could run into would involve more blow overs because the front of the boat is lighter.

The breakaway rule should not apply to roll up boats. Reasons roll up boats can turn both ways. When was the last time someone speared another driver in BSR?

Gas:
Soon we will all be faced with finding gas that has ethanol in it. We need to look into this problem before it gets to us. Not after we have the problem. We all know it’s coming and if we don't work on it now we will be spending more money and effort working on it than we really need to.

Accidents:
Look into which classes have the most accidents. Then look into what caused them. See if the accidents where major or minor and then follow up with how to prevent them. Remember the sport should be about safety and protecting its drivers.

Race Sites:
I know that many of our races throughout the country are at the same sites we have been running at for years. In most cases we have a great rapport with these sites. See what else we can gain from these places. Become a fixture in the comminute and help us build more race sites. If your not getting more sites you might gain more drivers.

Competing Races in the same geographic region. I know this summer on one weekend there were 3 different races in the same category in the same region. Isn't that like dividing your resources and then putting on so races with barely any racers?

National Championships use to have a rule saying that no other race can be run against the nationals in the same category. So my complaint is why does the Marthathon Nationals Not get this same respect. Is it not a national championship? I would have no problem allowing a race site the chance to run an all-hydro event the same weekend because we can't run hydros here. I would love to accommodate hydro drivers and maybe in the future we could run a limited hydro race at the marathon nationals, but the chances are slim.

Thanks for considering these ideas. These were not personal attracts at anyone or thing, they are merely thoughts I have had.

[Cameraboy]

Two proposals

Here are two proposals that I have submitted via my region commissioners. The first is fairly straight forward, adding stock into the recommendation for the use of helmet restraints, and adding a recommendation for stock for the use of the "flak jacket" inserts:

SAFETY RULES FOR JUNIOR classes, MODIFIED OUTBOARD,
PROFESSIONAL RACING OUTBOARD, AND STOCK OUTBOARD RACING

SAFETY RULE 3 • EQUIPMENT

6. Drivers must wear life jackets, helmets, eye protection and cut-resistant, wrist-length sleeves and cut-resistant, ankle-length pants at all times while on the water for the purpose of driving racing equipment. In closed course racing, when stopped on the course, the driver’s helmet only may be removed when no other racing craft are underway anywhere on the course or when the driver’s boat is tethered to a towboat. The helmet only may also be removed by drivers of stalled boats during point-to-point marathons. Helmet restraints are recommended for use in Stock and PRO racing. All drivers in PRO classes must also wear impact/flak jackets (impact/flak jackets are recommended for all drivers in Stock classes). These impact/flak jackets may be worn separately or incorporated into the life jacket. The coverage area of the impact/flak material, whether in a separately worn impact/flak jacket or incorporated into the life jacket itself, will provide full coverage of the front and back of the torso. The intent is to provide impact/flak coverage of vital internal organs. Drivers in boats equipped with reinforced cockpits are exempt from the portions of this rule requiring impact/flak jackets and cut-resistant clothing. The referee or inspector has the power to prohibit the use of any helmet or life jacket that he/she determines to be potentially unsafe.

The second was a little more difficult in that it was under General Racing rules. We share the same flag rules with Inboards, but use them a little differently. The idea is to have something more eye-catching than a Black flag to direct racers to reduce speed and return to the pits. Inboards use the red flag to stop the race - boats stop on the course. I didn't want to mess with that because it works for them, but did add a line to specify shutting down. Black would continue to signal that course is closed. An Orange flag would signal to reduce speed and return to the pits. The idea is not just another flag, but to draw attention to a safety issue regarding drivers not seeing flags. If you're watching for flags, then Orange should be easier to see against a dark background than Black.

deleted text in red bold

APBA GENERAL RACING RULES

RULE 11 • FLAGS1. All signal flags shall be a minimum of two feet by two feet.
2. Flag signals are used to designate specific time or to give instructions to contestants. Briefly, the flags and their purposes are as follows:
BLACK Course is closed, return to pits; do not leave pits.
RED STOP! STOP! Shut down boat. Be alert and watch for other signals. The discharge of red or orange smoke/aerial flares in conjunction with RED FLAGS is advised.
WHITE Time between one-minute signal and start; leader has started last lap.
GREEN Time between five-minute and one-minute signal; while race is underway except last lap.
YELLOW CAUTION: Problems on race course, continue with caution and HOLD POSITION
ORANGE RETURN TO PITS IMMEDIATELY (The discharge of red or orange smoke/aerial flares in conjunction with ORANGE FLAGS is advised).
BLUE/WHITE CAUTION: Problems on race course, continue with caution.
CHECKERED FINISH.

[Cameraboy]

Overlap rule

After doing some reading, and some recollection of some OSY "incidents" this past season, it seems that there is more of a problem with the interpreation of the PRO overlap rule than necessarily with the rule itself (therefore I'm withholding judgement on the rule itself). With one exception, everytime I have heard it explained at a driver's meeting, or by a driver, the explantion ends at subsection 2. But it is subsections 3 & 4 and Section C (highlighted below) that address much of the safety responsibilities involved. I'm going to recommend that my club laminate the rule below and attach it inside the turn judge boats for next season (no jokes about drivers and reading!). The safe lane portion (Section C) gets ignored, pissing people off about the overlap portion (Section B). If it is too complicated to enforce both , then maybe it is time for a change.


SAFETY RULES FOR JUNIOR classes, MODIFIED OUTBOARD,
PROFESSIONAL RACING OUTBOARD, AND STOCK OUTBOARD RACING

SAFETY RULE 5 • OPERATION

3. OVERLAP

B. OVERLAP—PRO classes. An OVERLAP is established only when two boats are on the same course or approximately the same course and the
cockpit of the overtaking boat is even with the cockpit of the overtaken boat. The following rules shall apply to an overlap.
1) The lead boat has the right of way until an overlap is established.
2) A safe overlap is the responsibility of the overtaking boat.
3) Once an overlap is established, the overtaken boat must give the overtaking boat room to clear any course markers.
4) The overtaking boat cannot force an overlap after the lead boat has begun to alter course to negotiate a turn.
5) Any violation of the overlap rules listed above will result in the disqualifi cation of the offending driver for the heat.
C. SAFE LANE—PRO classes: Any boat that has overtaken another boat on the race course must leave a safe lane for the overtaken boat.
Determination of a safe lane shall be at the discretion of the Referee without need of protest from the overtaken driver.