PART 5


The requirement to extend the time if there is good reason to do so is to allow for circumstances in which the competitor finds it impossible to submit the protest in time. These reasons might include being very late ashore after being rescued, going to hospital, or poor wind conditions making a return to shore in time very difficult; it does mean however that submitting a protest needs to be done quickly on returning to shore.


Regattas need to have closure for new protests involving on-the-water incidents, which includes competing in a boat that does not comply with class rules, and the time limit as described in rule 61.3 should not normally be extended beyond the end of the event.


That does not preclude serious allegations being investigated after the end of an event. Actions under rule 69 have no time limit and can be initiated by a protest committee at any time even after the regatta has finished and the competitors have gone home. An allegation, even in a late and invalid protest, of the knowing use of a better but forbidden sail material would be a good reason for a protest committee to call a hearing under rule 69, but that is a matter for a protest committee to decide.


It should be noted that the default time limit of two hours after the last boat in the race finishes will not be appropriate for an alleged infringement in a race that is not the last of the day if boats do not return to shore between races. If no time limit is stated in the sailing instruction for that sort of event, or if it duplicates the inappropriate wording of the rule, that would be a good reason to extend the time limit.


It can often be difficult for the race committee to comply with the protest time. The race officer will usually be the last off the water, and if notification was not possible while afloat, he or she will have both to notify the competitor of the protest and to write and lodge the protest, all within the protest time limit, on top of other end-of-day duties. A sailing instruction modelled on L16.4 will simplify notification, but a written protest still has to be lodged. The protest committee has the discretion to extend the time limit if there is a good reason to do so, but it has to balance the difficulties of the race committee with the rights of the competitor. My experience is that, when a race committee is not sufficiently versed in the rules so as to realise that it normally cannot disqualify a boat without a hearing, it will be grumpy when this is pointed out, moving rapidly to very upset when it then understands the further hoops through which it must jump to secure the disqualification. But that is no reason for the protest committee to put the race committee in a more privileged position than a competitor.


Rule 62 62.1 REDRESS


A request for redress or a protest committee’s decision to consider redress shall be based on a claim or possibility that a boat’s score or place in a race or series has been or may be, through no fault of her own, made significantly worse by


(a) an improper action or omission of the race committee, protest committee, organizing authority or technical committee for the event, but not by a protest committee decision when the boat was a party to the hearing;


(b) injury or physical damage because of the action of a boat that was breaking a rule of Part 2 or of a vessel not racing that was required to keep clear;


(c) giving help (except to herself or her crew) in compliance with rule 1.1; or


(d) an action of a boat, or a member of her crew, that resulted in a penalty under rule 2 or a penalty or warning under rule 69.2(h).


Most requests for redress concern perceived wrongs by the race committee under rule 62.1(a). ‘A boat is not permitted to protest a race committee for breaking a rule. However, she may request redress…’ says WS 44. Despite this, and despite also the clear segregation of protests and requests for redress in the rules, people still talk of ‘protesting the race committee’. (I was on the international jury at an event in a part of Europe somewhat more hot-tempered than Great Britain, where several competitors, very upset by what they perceived as a race committee mistake, each struck out the pre-printed ‘request for redress’ line and tick-box on the protest form, and wrote over it ‘Protest the race committee1


.’)


1 Perhaps it is not helped by the fact that the body that hears requests for redress is still called the protest committee. Given also its role in rules 60.3(d) and 69 (under which a hearing is not a protest), perhaps it should be renamed the ‘disputes committee’ or the ‘hearings team’.


186 RYA The Racing Rules Explained


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