PART 4


In RYA 2001/3, there was a pre-start collision between keelboats Iris and Daffodil, in respect of which Daffodil came off the worse with an exposed core and damaged bulkhead, and did two turns. Iris protested, and Daffodil was disqualified for breaking a right-of-way rule, causing serious damage and not retiring. The cost of repairs to both boats was substantial, despite which both boats had continued in that race and raced again that day. Daffodil appealed on the grounds that the cost of repairs alone did not constitute serious damage if a boat was able to continue racing. Having decided, as previously noted under rule 14, that serious damage under rule 44 includes damage a boat causes to herself, and that Daffodil had failed the ‘prudent owner’ test, the RYA upheld the protest committee’s conclusion that the damage was serious, based on both the extent and type of the damage and the cost of repairs to both boats, both in absolute terms and relative to the value of the boats. ‘The fact that one or both boats can continue racing does not preclude damage from being serious.’ In a later unpublished case the RYA decided that a hole in a boat’s side that was expensive to repair relative to the value of the boat was serious damage, even though, in waiting for the result of the appeal for insurance purposes, the boat had campaigned for several months with the hole taped over.


The question of significant advantage is less clear-cut. What is ‘significant’? The word also appears in the context of a disadvantage when redress is asked for1


, and there most protest committees treat the significance as being


self-fulfilling – if a boat feels the need to ask for redress, even if only one place has been lost, that must be significant to her. But it is unlikely that the reverse is always true for an advantage, although the difference between first and second place would probably be significant. The cases do not help, nor do they consider what is an advantage.


Barging though a raft of boats at the leeward mark and getting through from back to front, possibly touching the mark in the process, would clearly be a significant advantage that would negate the validity of a subsequent two- turns penalty, resulting in disqualification in a protest for any breach of a Part 2 rule or of rule 31.


When there is an incident, the act of taking a penalty and then protesting the other boat ‘from a position of immunity from penalisation’ is not in itself the gaining of an advantage that invalidates the penalty that was taken2 Nor is doing the minimum required to carry out a one-turn penalty, even if it does not even delay the boat3


.


Q&A M 005 looks in detail at the question of advantage. Question 2


When a boat takes a Two-Turns Penalty, is the question as to whether she should have retired for having gained a significant advantage in the race decided with reference only to the other boat in the incident, or with reference to the other competitors generally – or is there some other test?


Answer 2


Both the other boat in the incident and the other competitors generally should be considered. Question 3


Is the advantage gained despite taking a turn(s) penalty measured simply by comparing places or positions before and after the incident? Or can what might have happened be taken into account? (For instance, not giving mark-room to a boat entitled to mark-room, and then take a Two-Turns Penalty for the breach, when the breach most likely caused the other boat to not gain all the places she could have gained had she been given mark-room.)


Answer 3


What might have happened is generally not considered when measuring whether boat has gained a significant advantage. However, considering where the boat that broke a rule would have ended up had she not broken that rule should be considered. Generally, places lost by the other boat in the incident will not be considered unless it is clear that the boat breaking a rule acts deliberately and thereby also breaks rule 2, Fair Sailing.


.


1 Rule 62.1 2 RYA 1986/7: the wording of rule 44.1(b) now confirms this 3 WS 108, see below


160 RYA The Racing Rules Explained


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