PART 5 The significance of ‘fault’
The rule makes clear that a boat will be entitled to redress only when she herself was not even the partial cause of the problem – it must be ‘at no fault of her own’. This is different from the situation in civil legal cases for negligence, where the negligence of the plaintiff will not prevent the other party being found negligent: rather, this ‘contributory negligence’ will reduce the amount of damages. In sailing, redress is all or nothing, depending on whether the requester was at fault. In RYA 1999/4, in light airs, Blue gave up trying to get the starting area when the race committee began the starting sequence several minutes early. No other boat was affected. The refusal of redress was upheld on appeal.
A boat that believes she has been adversely affected by a mistake of the race committee, but which chooses not to race or to continue racing although able to do so, is not without fault, since she contributes to her own worsened score, and so is not entitled to redress. The race officer made a mistake, which affected only Blue. Any prejudice that might have resulted became irrelevant when, rather than sail the course, Blue made no attempt to race and elected to return ashore. For the purposes of rule 62.1, she was not without fault, as it was she that had deprived herself of a score for a finishing position.
In US 86 the question is asked whether a boat whose finishing position is made worse by taking a penalty is then entitled to a better score if she then wins a protest concerning the incident, in the process proving that she had broken no rule. The answer was that she was not, because she was the cause of her own loss of place – in effect, taking a penalty was her choice, and so it was her fault.
A claim or possibility that a score or place in a race or series has been or may be…made significantly worse…
A request for redress will not be valid unless it is also claimed that what happened affected the requester’s score or place. Often, this is implicit, as when an OCS score is contested.
The score or place is usually in the race concerned. It may also affect the series score as a result. Occasionally, it is only a series score that is affected, as in RYA 1997/1, already discussed under rule 46, where Redcoat was not contesting the individual race scores vis a vis the boat whose name was changed in mid-series from Serendip to Securon. The issue was whether it was one and the same boat for the series results (which it was held to be).
When there is, within the overall results for a race, a separate classification or prize for a particular category of competitor or boat (e.g., first woman or first master, or, as in RYA 2002/6, ‘first Westerly Class Yacht on handicap), this too will count as a race for redress purposes.
What loss of score or place is ‘significant’? The difference between first and second place is clearly significant. What about the difference between 89th and 90th place? Or 85th and 90th place? Or 9th and 10th place? My experience is that protest committees tend to regard this as self-fulfilling – if a boat is aggrieved enough to ask for redress, the loss of score or place, however small, is significant for her. It might be different if there were an issue on the last day of a big regatta related to minor places when to hold a hearing would delay the prize- giving. A further point is that it may not be clear until all the evidence is heard whether any loss of score or place is significant. By that time, there is little point in refusing to grant redress if all other requirements of the rule have been met, since if scoring is done by computer, no time would be gained compared with making a small adjustment to one or more scores or places.
The rule now makes clear that the effect on the boat’s score or place may not yet be certain. That will often be true of the effect of an incident on the boat’s series score.
…by 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.
The last sixteen words are to prevent a boat from using the redress route to secure a guaranteed hearing to contest an adverse protest committee decision. The only option for the party is to ask for the hearing to be reopened under the rule intended for this purpose, namely rule 66, alleging that a mistake was made. Under rule 66 the decision to reopen is at the discretion of the protest committee.
It is not clear whether the word ‘improper’ applies to an omission as well as to an action, but the word ‘omission’ conveys a sense of impropriety.
RYA The Racing Rules Explained 189
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