PART 5


• A party cannot be prevented from calling a witness but there comes a point when repetition of the same assertions will not add anything, a fact that the protest committee is entitled to draw to the attention of the party concerned.


Call each party’s witnesses (and the protest committee’s if any) one by one. Limit parties to questioning the witness(es) (they may wander into general statements).


• Do not allow the party to leave the room to find the witness. Instead send out a member of the protest committee, to avoid any possibility or suspicion of a quick conference before the witness appears.


• If the parties’ model diagrams are on the table, cover them with paper, and get the witness to make a similar diagram with fresh models. You may end up with three or four diagrams on the table.


Invite the protestee to question the protestor’s witness first (and vice versa). This prevents the protestor from leading his witness from the beginning.


Allow members of the protest committee who saw the incident to give evidence (rule 63.6), but only while the parties are present. Members who give evidence may be questioned, should take care to relate all they know about the incident that could affect the decision, and may remain on the protest committee (rule 63.3(a)).


Try to prevent leading questions or hearsay evidence, but if that is impossible discount the evidence so obtained.


Accept written evidence from a witness who is not available to be questioned only if all parties agree. In doing so they forego their rights to question that witness (rule 63.6)1


. Ask one member of the committee to note down evidence, particularly times, distances, speeds, etc.


Invite first the protestor and then the protestee to make a final statement of her case, particularly on any application or interpretation of the rules.


The protest committee must now find the facts. Appendix M advises: • Write down the facts; resolve doubts one way or the other. • Call back parties for more questions if necessary. • When appropriate, draw a diagram of the incident using the facts you have found2


.


Easily said, but often difficult to do. The evidence will often conflict, with the story of each party being perfectly plausible were it not for the equally plausible case of the other party3 single set of facts4


. But the protest committee must arrive at a


. If there was contact in a boat-versus-boat incident, that almost always obliges facts to be found leading to a finding that one or both boats, or another boat broke a rule5


. In RYA 2008/4, A Boen was clear astern


of X Factor and then became overlapped to leeward. There was contact resulting in minor damage. There was no change of course by X Factor. The protest committee found that A Boen could have avoided the contact, but decided that it had insufficient evidence to disqualify either boat as the evidence was conflicting, the damage was minimal and it had not been proven that a boat had broken a rule. It referred its decision to the RYA under rule 70.2. Correcting the decision of the protest committee (and penalizing A Boen under rules 14 and 15), the RYA said:


When there is an incident and one of the boats decides to protest, all boats involved are at risk of penalisation if they do not retire or (as was possible at this event) take an available penalty. It is of the essence of protests that the parties disagree as to what happened. The protest committee must decide facts regarding what they believe happened, and those facts need not coincide with what any one party alleged. It may be that the facts found differ from what happened, but that can only be demonstrated if new evidence gives rise to a reopening.


1 US 63 disagrees, in upholding an appeal because written evidence was accepted, despite there being no reference to any objection to this at


the hearing by the appellant 2 If using models in the hearing, is it quicker to use them to produce a diagram which can be photographed. 3 This was written just after returning from the jury at a European dinghy championship where S the protestor said that P tacked so close and late that


S had to tack off to avoid contact. Nonsense, said P, we never came within 7 metres. A witness from another boat supported the story of the protestor, perhaps too glibly. We came to finding a distance apart close enough to support a conclusion that S could not sail her course without needing to take avoiding action. P was disqualified, and was upset. It was with some relief that after the hearing a sequence of photographs from the event photographer


was produced, showing almost exactly what the protestor had claimed. Had it been otherwise, we would of course have reopened. 4 SC 75 5 But see WS 77, RYA 1999/5 and rule 23


RYA The Racing Rules Explained 203


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