BASIC PRINCIPLES
L lodged a valid protest. The facts found show that P broke rule 10 and she was correctly disqualified. There is no obligation on a right-of-way boat to protest when another boat has not kept clear. That she did not protest in no way diminishes the fact that the keep-clear boat has broken a rule. Likewise, the intentions of the right-of-way boat have no bearing on the matter…the Basic Principle, Sportsmanship and the Rules says that when a boat knows that she had broken a rule, she must take a penalty, whether or not the right-of-way boat intends to protest. The appellant therefore broke a principle of sportsmanship, and is to be penalised further (DNE) for breaking rule 21.
Similarly, WS 31 says that if a boat knows she is OCS but is not recalled, and does not return, she breaks rule 2 as well as rule 28, and fails to comply with the Basic Principle,
Retiring is not a defined term. Unhelpfully, scoring abbreviations DNF and RET will both cover retirement while racing (although only RET will apply to a decision to retire after the race. A protest committee can deem a boat to have retired. Rule 24.1 says that a boat that is not racing shall not interfere with a boat that is racing. In RYA 1986/6, Iris missed out a mark in order to get to and manoeuvre against Daffodil, and was held to have broken that rule (and others), as by not sailing the course she had in effect retired, and so was no longer racing.
Is there any time limit on retiring? No, says Q&A 2017.007. A need to retire might arise after a race, perhaps long afterwards – a boat sees a video of herself touching a mark, or realises later that she raced with a repair that did not comply with class rules, or that a manoeuvre she believed to be legal at the time broke a racing rule. She ought to retire – in which case the race committee is obliged to correct the results.
Is a decision to retire irrevocable? Not necessarily, according to RYA 2001/2. Boat A lodged a protest against boats B and C for sailing the wrong course. Boat B did not believe she had done so, but ‘did the sportsmanlike thing’ and retired. Boat C did not retire. Within protest time, boat A checked her facts with the race committee, and found that her protest was unjustified. She withdrew her protest against boat C. Was boat B then entitled to ‘unretire’?
With the caveat that the rules were silent with regard to ‘unretiring’, the RYA replied pragmatically to the effect that, when a boat retires for having gained a significant advantage or causing serious damage in the act of touching a mark or breaking a rule of Part 2, that is irrevocable. The decision continued:
When a boat retires for some other reason, as in this case, and has indicated her retirement either to the race committee or to another boat, she may reverse this decision before the end of protest time or declaration time, whichever is earlier, provided that she has not broken any other rule in the mean time. For instance, retiring during a race, using her engine, and then resuming racing would preclude ‘unretirement’. However, if she has no good reason to ‘unretire’, she breaks rule 2, Fair Sailing, and the protest committee should, if necessary, extend the protest time limit for any boats that did not proceed with a protest against her because of her initial retirement2
.
Retirement is no bar to a boat being protested, nor will it prevent a protest committee awarding a non-excludable disqualification (DNE) when that is the appropriate penalty for the infringement, whether under rule 2, Fair Sailing3 or when specified in the sailing instructions.
When a boat realises that she has broken a rule, and when a turn(s) penalty or some other penalty is not available to her, the Basic Principle requires her to retire. Suppose that…the penalty for breaking [that] rule…is DNE. A boat that realises that she has broken such a rule cannot accept a DNE, and no other penalty is available to her, other than retiring. So retire she must.
When a boat has retired, nothing in rule 60 prevents her from being protested. Rule 63.1 then requires the protest committee to hear all protests. Rule 64.1(a) says that when a protest committee decides that a boat has broken a rule, it shall disqualify her unless some other penalty applies. Normally, retirement precludes penalisation, as stated in rule 64.1(b). However, as also stated in that rule, that is not so when a boat has taken an applicable penalty such as retirement but the only penalty available to the protest committee is DNE. In this case, the protest committee can and must apply a DNE penalty, regardless of the boat having retired4
. 1 At the time, DNE was the only penalty available for a breach of rule 2. As will be seen under that rule, DNE is no longer compulsory, and not
adding to the discardable DSQ already awarded would be an option today. 2 A former Q&A said that, when a boat seeks to ‘unretire’, ‘If the race committee did not reinstate her finishing position and she requests redress, the protest committee should consider if the original retirement was her own fault and if her action to rescind the retirement was timely. Especially if the retirement is rescinded after the end of the protest time limit, it may conclude that the race committee has made no error and they may also find that the score of RAF was not ‘through no fault of her own’ and refuse the request. If the race committee does reinstate the
boat and other boats in the fleet request redress then any such request should be refused as there is no error by the race committee. 3 See rule 64.1(b) 4 RYA 2005/5
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