PART 5


‘When her protest will concern an incident in the racing area that she was involved in or saw…’ An ‘incident in the racing area’ will include situations when the boats are subject to the racing rules of sailing, but are not yet ‘racing’, as defined, or have completed the race. Although a boat may not be able to be penalised as a result of such a protest, a protest hearing will help find the facts for a related request for redress (and/or insurance claim)1


. If the boats that are not yet racing are near each other, a ‘Protest’ hail, and, in some cases, a red flag, will be required at the first reasonable opportunity after the incident – to wait until the preparatory signal will be too late2


.


‘…she shall hail ‘Protest’ and conspicuously display a red flag at the first reasonable opportunity for each. She shall display the flag until she is no longer racing.’ When Vindictive sees an incident between Iris and Daffodil, she is perfectly entitled to protest either or both of them3


. She must comply with protest notification requirements at the time of the incident, and ‘cannot justify her own failure to display a protest flag on the grounds that none of the other boats lodged a valid protest after displaying a protest flag4


other boat(s) at the first reasonable opportunity5 The actual word ‘Protest’ (or a derivative such as ‘protesting’ or ‘protested’) must be used6 . If this becomes an


issue at the start of a protest hearing, then the longer it has taken for that word to emerge after the incident, the more sceptical a protest committee should be. In particular, one boat pointing out to another boat that she has touched a mark, and/or suggesting that she should take a penalty, involves using words that needlessly occupy the first reasonable opportunity for uttering the word ‘Protest’. A hail places no obligation on a boat to proceed with a protest. Best advice is therefore to hail ‘Protest’ first, then think and argue next.


When a red protest flag is required to be displayed, it is understandable that it may not be broken out at the same moment as the hail is made, but it must follow very quickly. RYA 1999/1 gives useful clarification, particularly how attentive a protest committee should be over validity formalities.


Question 1


When the rules require a boat to display a protest flag in order for a protest to be valid, should the protest committee expect a competitor to have the protest flag ready to use, or is it reasonable in a larger boat to keep it below or in a locker, and fetch it when needed? If not, how many seconds does a boat have before the first reasonable opportunity may be said to have passed?


Answer 1


A protest committee should expect a competitor to have a protest flag close at hand. Where it is kept is not important, but if its location delays its display significantly, as it is likely to do if kept below, and there was some other more quickly accessible place where it could have been kept, then it will not have been displayed at the first reasonable opportunity. No particular time for displaying the protest flag can be specified. The longer the time between the incident and the display of the protest flag, the more closely the protest committee should examine the circumstances to see if the first reasonable opportunity had clearly passed7.


.’ So she must also hail ‘Protest’ at the time, if within hailing distance, otherwise notify the .


1 See the Part 2 preamble 2 RYA 1996/8. 3 Her written protest will need to identify which boat is believed to have broken which rule. 4 RYA 1981/7 and 1996/2. Even though one of the other boats may have hailed and flagged, no written protest may result, or it may be too late, or it may be found to be invalid for other reasons. A third boat wishing to ensure that the incident comes before the protest committee must


comply with all protest requirements, and if a protest from one of the boats involved is found to be valid, it will be heard jointly with hers. 5 Rule 61.1(a)(1) 6 RYA 2002/7 7 So in SC 88, the retrieval of the flag from below deck was invalidly delayed by five minutes while the crew member sent for the flag first


mopped up a water spillage. ‘Stowing the protest flag below decks where it is not readily accessible makes it unlikely that the flag can be displayed at the first reasonable opportunity.’ And SC 63 says that a keelboat with a crew of five would have to provide compelling reasons why her protest flag was not displayed within a very few seconds after an incident. Failure to display a protest flag when some member of the crew is not otherwise occupied is a failure to display it ‘at the first reasonable opportunity’ (US 67), but a boat is not required to give priority to displaying a protest flag at the cost of the crew failing to keep the boat under control or delaying a spinnaker set (US 82).


180 RYA The Racing Rules Explained


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