PART 5 Part 5 – Protests; Redress, Hearings; Misconduct and Appeals


With 77 main rules, the sport of sailing exceeds the number of rules and laws of cricket (42), rugby union football (28) and association football (17). All those sports are umpired or refereed while the game is in progress, play can stop when the official requires, and there is only one game at a time. Perhaps sailing and golf (34 rules) have more in common, both being primarily self-policing. Golf however can often stop for a ruling, and the competition is effectively one competitor against himself or herself.


In mainstream sailboat fleet racing, the decision-making officials afloat are not involved in inter-boat issues, play cannot stop to resolve a dispute, and in any one race there are multiple rules-related encounters whenever boats meet. Since wrongs in non-umpired forms of sailing can be righted only retrospectively, it is not surprising that a quasi-judicial process of hearings, parties, witnesses and appeals has built up, and this is both one of the glories and one of the weaknesses of the sport. Part 5, which deals purely with the process of standard forms of dispute resolution, has 10 rules covering 13 pages of the World Sailing rules book.


The aspiration of sailing is to be self-policing, and penalties available at the time of an incident resolve most matters. When they do not, the speed at which a dispute can be resolved can vary. An umpired decision in match racing or team racing will be made in seconds, arbitration if available may take 15 minutes, a skilled protest committee or international jury will rarely take less than 45 minutes on average for a valid contested hearing, and an inexperienced protest committee might take twice as long. On top of that, an appeal will take months. And what actually happened may never be known for sure until suitable technology is developed.


Section A – Protests; Redress; Rule 69 Action


Protests, redress and actions under rule 69 are different things. A protest is defined as an allegation made under rule 61.2 that a boat has broken a rule. Redress is the possible outcome of hearing a claim (or consideration of the possibility) that a boat’s score or place in a race or series has, through no fault of her own, been made worse by one of a list of reasons. A rule 69 action is a disciplinary hearing against a competitor for gross misconduct. Protest hearings concern boats, and while people talk of winning a protest, nothing is gained by the winner other than the satisfaction of the loss by the loser and a score possibly improved by a place. Redress hearings concern boats too, and normally the requester will not be worse off as a result. A competitor and a boat can each be penalised under a rule 69 action. The titles of Section A and of rule 60 do not encapsulate a new rule 60 process – a hearing under rule 60.3(d) to consider whether a support person has broken a rule. A race committee may make mistakes, but it is not to be penalised for them: rather, compensation is given as redress for the effect of any mistake.


The outcome of a protest hearing can give rise to consideration of redress. But a redress hearing cannot mutate directly into a protest hearing, and a protest hearing cannot mutate directly into a rule 60.3(d) hearing related to a support person, or rule 69 action.


Rule 60 goes on to state the options open to a boat, a race committee, a protest committee and a technical committee. An organizing authority (which is the parent of the race committee, see rule 89.2(b)) has no power to protest1


, nor does a class association2 .


1 However, as with a competitor, nothing precludes it from asking a protest committee to consider redress in favour of a boat, or from lodging a


report with a protest committee that may lead to the protest committee considering calling a rule 60.3(d) hearing or a rule 69.1 hearing. 2 RYA 2001/12. In addition, class rules cannot vary protest procedures for the class, because no rule of Part 5 can be changed by class rules – see rule 86.1(c): as confirmed by WS 85, only a sailing instruction can change Part 5 requirements.


RYA The Racing Rules Explained 169


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