PART 5 60.3


A protest committee may (a) protest a boat, but not as a result of information arising from a request for redress or an invalid protest, or from a report from a person with a conflict of interest other than the representative of the boat herself. However, it may protest a boat


(1) if it learns of an incident involving her that may have resulted in injury or serious damage, or


(2) if during the hearing of a valid protest it learns that the boat, although not a party to the hearing, was involved in the incident and may have broken a rule;


(b) call a hearing to consider redress; (c) act under rule 69.2(b); or


(d) call a hearing to consider whether a support person has broken a rule, based on its own observation or information received from any source, including evidence taken during a hearing.


The structure of the rule is complex, with exceptions to exceptions. Here is how it works. ‘A protest committee may protest a boat…’


A protest against a boat implies that there will be a hearing. There is no issue in principle over the fact that it may be the same protest committee that will hear the protest it has lodged, putting it in the position of prosecutor (and sometimes chief witness for the prosecution), judge, jury and executioner combined. The boat should be grateful for at least having the opportunity to defend herself. When rule 42 is being policed under Appendix P, a yellow flag is not a protest but a designation of an immediate penalty for which no hearing is required.


The general exceptions to the right to bring a protest as applicable to a race committee also apply to a protest committee, but with relaxations.


‘…but not as a result of information arising from a request for redress…’ The request for redress may be valid. For instance, take the protest referred to under rule 28.1, where Daffodil was scored DNF. She believed she had finished, having borne away after her bow cut the finishing line to avoid a right-of-way boat. We the protest committee found that the windward finishing line had been moved from where she thought it to be by Iris that lassoed and dragged the pin mark upwind. The request was valid (but was refused). But what of Iris? No one had protested her. Could we the protest committee now protest her under rule 31 if she had not taken a penalty? No.


When a request for redress is invalid, it may also rank as a report whose information is not available to a protest committee to form the basis of a protest. In RYA 1990/7, an incident occurred between two boats, Atlantis and Caprice, as a result of which Atlantis lodged a protest in which a third boat, Carina, was named as witness. There had been no damage. The protest was lodged 15 minutes after the end of protest time, and refused as the protest committee saw no good reason to extend protest time. The next morning, Carina lodged a request for redress stating that she had witnessed the incident and alleging that Caprice had broken a rule of Part 2. The protest committee extended the time limit, treated the request for redress as a valid protest under rule 60.1(a), and disqualified Caprice for breaking a rule of Part 2. Caprice’s appeal was upheld.


Carina’s request began: ‘Under rules 60.2(a) and 62.1(a) I wish to inform the race committee of an infringement of the rules in race 3’. That amounted merely to a report. It was not a valid request for redress, as it did not include any allegation that the race or protest committee had acted or omitted to act so as to make Carina’s score significantly worse. The report came from a competitor, but rule 60.2(a) specifically prohibits a race committee from protesting as the result of a report from a competitor, as does rule 60.3(a) in respect of the protest committee in the absence of a report of injury or serious damage; hence the protest committee, like the race committee, should have taken no action.


RYA The Racing Rules Explained 173


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