PART 3
A hail is not a sound signal, and if a recall hail is made but is unheard, the recall flag is not seen, and there is no sound signal, a boat not aware that she is OCS will be entitled to redress1
.
The rule requires the recall signal (whose sound signal should be equally as audible as the starting sound signal)2 to be made ‘promptly’, which means ‘within a very few seconds of the starting signal. Forty seconds is well beyond the limits of acceptability3
’, and the race committee cannot shelter behind a sailing instruction purporting
to place all the responsibility for returning on the competitor. ‘When a signal is not made or, as in this case, when the signal is much too late, it places a boat that does not realise that she was slightly over the line at the starting signal at a significant disadvantage...’, and the fact she may indeed have been OCS does not count as a fault that would preclude redress. ‘The error is entirely the race committee’s fault, not that of the disadvantaged boat4
.’
If forty seconds is too long, what about ten seconds? Q&A G012 says that ‘promptly’ will depend on the size of the fleet, the size and manoeuvrability of the boats, the length of the starting line. For the start of a race for sixty Lasers in 15–18kts of wind, ten seconds would be too long. Indeed, while agreeing with this conclusion, one can argue that the circumstances mentioned will have little effect on the time it should take a well-prepared race to translate a race officer’s shout of ‘OCS’ to the display of flag X. The best test remains the ‘very few seconds’ in WS 79.
If the protest committee believes that a recalled boat that did not return was wrongly identified as OCS, then reinstatement into her finishing position is the appropriate redress. If the issue is that the boat was OCS, unknown to herself, but the recall was improperly signalled so that she did not return, then the redress is likely to be different. The purpose of redress is neither to punish the race committee nor to reward a boat. Rather, it is to try to put a boat in the position she would have been in had the race committee procedure been proper, as is equitable both to her and to all other competitors. So had the signal been properly made, and had she returned, she would have lost places as a result. Her redress score should therefore be several places worse than her actual finishing position, reflecting the time it would have taken her to return and start5
.
That is particularly true when a recall signal aimed at Daffodil is removed early. If the protest committee is satisfied that Daffodil was OCS, but she did not return, the question is whether she would have returned had it been displayed for the full time required. If not, then the mistiming error did not affect Daffodil, and she is not entitled to redress. Even if she can establish a link between the premature lowering of her signal and her not returning, her redress will be limited. In RYA 2006/2, flag X was lowered after a minute, although the boat for which it was intended had not returned, and did not do so.
A boat is entitled to redress only when she can show that a mistake affected her finishing position. This might be because the boat was not able to see the committee boat during the period flag X was displayed, perhaps because of intervening boats, but would have been able to see it had it been displayed for longer. Alternatively she might be able to convince a protest committee that she had seen flag X, believed it might apply to her, and was on the point of returning when it was lowered. In either situation, the earliest time the error could have affected the boat is the moment flag X was lowered – in this case, about one minute after the starting signal.
If the protest committee is satisfied that the boat would have returned if flag X had been displayed for longer, it should award redress. Appropriate redress would be to reinstate her in the race and add to her finishing time the estimated time for the boat to sail back to the start line and then return to the point at which she turned back which, in this case, is unlikely to be less than two minutes. Reinstating the boat in her actual finishing position will be wrong as it will not be equitable to all boats as required by rule 64.26.
If the protest committee is not satisfied that the boat would have returned if flag X had been displayed for longer, redress should be refused.29
1 WS 71 2 RYA 1977/1 3 WS 79 4 ibid 5 WS 31 6 See also RYA 2000/3
136 RYA The Racing Rules Explained
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256
