Online learner

New UK Halsey interactive rules quiz tackles common windward mark rounding incident

UK-Halsey Sailmakers has just posted the 24th animated rules quiz to its web site. The newest quiz involves a port/starboard situation after rounding a windward mark.
Each of the quizzes are based on common situations when boats come together on the race course. The questions are intentionally not about obscure, hard to repeat, situations; they present incidents that commonly happen time and again on the race course.

What makes UK-Halsey’s quizzes a unique way to learn the rules of sailing is the use of animation, which allows viewers to get a much better understanding of the rule in question. The animations can be stopped and started and played over as many times as necessary for the viewer to come to their own conclusion before checking the answer. Viewers watch the boats move; spinnakers go up and come down; sails luff and are trimmed as well as move from side to side as the boats go around the racing marks.

Hot links are embedded in the answers when a rule or rule book defined term is mentioned so that the text of the rule or definition can be brought up in a separate window as a reference. The answers are presented in the same format a protest committee would publish a decision: First the facts found are presented followed the rule or rules broken, followed by the decision of who was at fault.

All the quizzes are free and can be found on the company's website: http://www.ukhalsey.com/RulesQuiz/index.asp. Since most of the quizzes have several related questions, the library of quizzes offers a lot of instruction to the racing sailor. You will need to register (under the company's strict privacy policy) on the site to see all the details.