Protests

The following documents can be downloaded: Protest Form (pdf), "Rules Disputes Best Practice"

NEW Sailing Instructions - 20th June 2008

Since June 2008 the race committee has decided to follow the advice of the RYA set out the document "Rules Disputes Best Practice". See the Sailing Instructions page for more details on how the rules are changed.

These new Instructions now allow two alternatives to a protest hearing when there is dispute about compliance with racing rules - Advisory Hearings and Arbitration. The purposes of these alternatives are:

to encourage skippers to notify examples of poor racing behaviour - even when they do not want to go through a formal protest hearing
to give a rapid (same day) resolution in these cases
to give an alternative (Exoneration Penalty) to complete disqualification or retirement in lesser cases
to improve the standard of racing overall

An Advisory Hearing can occur when one boat verbally asks the race officer for the hearing, when no serious damage or injury was caused and when all boats involved agree. The race officer will appoint an independent adviser who will briefly hear the arguments and deliver a judgement about whether a rule was broken. If it was the boat who broke it may choose to accept an Exoneration Penalty.

A RYA Arbitration is similar but requires formal written protest form completion. Arbitration can be sought by one party of the race committee as long as no serious damage or injury was caused and when all boats involved agree. A single appointed arbitrator will follow the same processes as a protest committee. If at any stage the arbitrator finds the issues are to complex for them to decide, a full protest hearing will be arranged.

Publishing Protests

The race committee has agreed that formal protests should in future be notified on this website. It also agreed that lessons learnt from anonymised recent protests can also be published. Both these are appended below.

Recent Protests

	Date:	21/11/2010
	Type:	Protest
	Alleged Rule Broken:
	Protestor and Protestee:	All Talk vs Summation
	Outcome:	Summation, whilst tacking from starboard to port or shortly after, collided with All Talk that was on starboard tack. Summation disqualified.
	Date:	04/04/2010
	Type:	Protest
	Alleged Rule Broken:	10
	Protestor and Protestee:	Kokomo vs Neilson Shark Bite
	Outcome:	The protest was deemed invalid as Kokomo did not fly a red protest flag within reasonable time - Rule 61.1.a. The protest was therefore not heard.
	Date:	11/06/2008
	Type:	Protest
	Alleged Rule Broken:
	Protestor and Protestee:	Joe 90 vs Jellina
	Outcome:	Jellina broke Rule 11. Jellina could not reasonably have avoided collision, neither could Joe 90. Jellina exonerated by prior collision with Diamond Sun. Joe 90 awarded redress
	Date:	11/06/2008
	Type:	Protest
	Alleged Rule Broken:	11
	Protestor and Protestee:	Jellina vs Diamond Sun
	Outcome:	Diamond Sun broke Rule 11. As Diamond Sun had already retired, no further penalty could be applied - Rule 44.4(b)
	Date:	24/02/2008
	Type:	Protest
	Alleged Rule Broken:	28.1
	Protestor and Protestee:	All Talk vs All of IRC1 and IRC2
	Outcome:	Protest dismissed
	Date:	30/09/2007
	Type:	Protest
	Alleged Rule Broken:	18
	Protestor and Protestee:	Mean Matchine vs Exocet
	Outcome:	Exocet broke rule 18. Mean Matchine did not take avoiding action and could have. Mean Matchine broke rule 14. Exocet disqualified. Mean Matchine disqualified.

Recent Lessons Learned

	*Bring a witness!* Two boats collided on the start line when there was an unexpected wind shift. There was complete discrepancy in the two versions of events given. The version that was consistent with the account on an external witness was preferred.
	*Protest Deemed Invalid* Boat A protested Boat B following a collision in which Boat A sustained minor damage. Boat A hoisted a protest flag after retrieving it from the chart table. The Protest Committee felt that there had been too long a delay in hoisting the red flag and the protest was deemed invalid - Rule 61.1.a. The damage to Boat A was not obvious to Boat B and so rule 61.1.a.3 did not apply. Lesson 1: if you want your protest to be valid - keep your protest flag on the backstay - not down below somewhere. The point is that boats may rapidly diverge after an incident and the protested boat must be informed of the protest when they are still very near so they have opportunity of taking the appropriate penalty. Lesson 2: If Boat B knew they were in the wrong, then the appropriate gentlemanly action, in accordance with the RYA Charter, would have been to take the penalty irrespective of whether the protest was valid or not.
	*A disagreement in testimony* Boat A and Boat B collided rounding the upwind mark. They both claimed the other was the give way boat. Boat A claimed there was no overlap at the 2 boat lengths zone and that she was clear ahead. Boat B claimed there was overlap and she was the inside boat. Neither boat had crew stationed in ideal positions to determine whether or not there was an overlap. The protest committee determined that on the basis of agreed testimony from both boats there must have been overlap shortly before the 2 boat lengths zone. According to Rule 18.2(e) - if there is reasonable doubt that a boat broke an overlap in time, it shall be presumed that she did not. This applied. Boat A should have given way to Boat B. Boat B should have avoided collision with Boat A and did have opportunity to do so. Both disqualified.

Suggested Advisors and Arbitrators

The Club does not yet have a formal list of members who have been trained or qualified to take on these roles. The following is a suggested list of who might be suitable in the interim.

David Greenhalgh
Mark Jephcott
Pete Tyler
Pip Tyler
Neil Angel
Duncan McDonald
Tim Spafford
Don Munro
Peter Whittle
Andy Uren
David Cobden
Rob McClane
Jonty Layfield
John Taylor

Protest Administration (Passworded).