PART 5
Improper actions or omissions by an organizing authority These might include: • a defective notice of race that failed to list a requirement that prevented a boat from competing in one or more races of an event until belatedly remedied, such as a requirement to carry non-standard safety equipment.
• A time given in the notice of race for the start time of the first race when this is subsequently brought forwards without giving adequate notice, resulting in the boat arriving too late at the event to sail the first race.
• A refusal of an entry under rule 76, if done after the start of the first race, or for some other reason believed to be ‘improper’.
Improper actions or omissions by a protest committee
Rule P4, when it applies, contemplates the possibility of redress arising from a ‘yellow flag’ penalty for breaking rule 42 when it is improper because a penalty was signalled after the race committee had switched off part of rule 42 by displaying flag R. Most other protest committee mistakes are made in the context of a hearing, where reopening under rule 66 is the first opportunity for righting wrongs, followed by an appeal. As stated above, the redress route is barred. On appeal, a decision of a protest committee can be found to be incorrect, and it can also be found to be technically legal but redressably improper, as for instance the decision to grant redress against a race committee error in the form of abandoning a number of races when only one or a few of those races was in fact affected1
. Improper actions or omissions by a race committee
It is these that most often lead to appeals. They will result in redress only if they affect a boat’s score. Examples from the cases include: • Failure to make the sound signal of an individual recall (WS 71), or the flag of a general recall (RYA 1982/7) or not making the individual recall signal until 30-40 seconds after the starting signal (RYA 1998/3), or removing flag X prematurely (RYA 2006/2), or not making a recall hail required by the sailing instructions (US 90), or making an additional sound signal in respect of any race signal (RYA 2004/7, SC 33).
• Laying a finishing line nearly in line with the last leg so that the direction of finishing is unclear (WS 82). • Relaying the starting line too far from its original position to allow a boat to reach it in time (RYA 1969/12). • Setting a course that is so ambiguous that no boat can sail the course (RYA 1993/1) • Badly locating a starting cannon so that its shot injures a competitor or damages a boat (RYA 1996/6) • Knowing that a fixed mark is out of place but not advising competitors of its new position, or replacing it with an object displaying flag M (RYA 2002/10)
• Issuing ambiguous sailing instructions (SC 73), US 103 • Changing the displayed course after the warning signal (RYA 1983/7) • Wrongly identifying a boat as OCS, as discussed under rule 29.1: or wrongly notifying her during the race that she was OCS
• Abandoning a race when there is no time limit on the race (RYA 1982/17) • Abandoning a race that cannot be shortened, before it is clear that no boat will finish in the time limit (RYA 1999/8).
• Disqualifying a boat without a hearing or scoring her DNF for leaving a course mark on the wrong side (WS 80, RYA 1989/8)
• Allowing excess cordage to stream from a mark, resulting in its being touched (RYA 1989/10) • Simultaneously displaying two different courses (RYA 2008/2)
Examples where the race committee did nothing improper • Laying a mark near the bank so that bunched boats could not pass between without colliding, when the water depth precluded the laying of a mark further away (RYA 1985/3).
• A hail during a race to a boat by the race officer that the race committee intended to protest her (RYA 1990/5). • An oral briefing by the race officer that was misinterpreted by a competitor as changing a rule (RYA 2004/1). • Failure by the race committee to discover that a rating certificate was invalid (WS 68). • Rescheduling the resail of a race to a date when the boat whose original request for redress had caused it to be abandoned could not take part (RYA 1999/9).
• Using a verified transit to judge whether boats were OCS when the pin end mast was obscured by boats (a former Q&A).
1 WS 37 190 RYA The Racing Rules Explained
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