PART 5


Once upon a time, if you broke a rule, you either retired or risked a protest and a disqualification. If you were to reinvent the sport of sailing, would you choose disqualification as the default penalty? Whatever your view, there has been a proliferation of penalties. These divide into those that a boat can take of her own volition, as we shall see under rule 64.1(b), those that a race committee can impose without a hearing (ZFP under rule 30.2, UFD under rule 30.3, BFD and DNE under 30.4), those that a protest committee can impose without a hearing (Two Turns, DSQ, DNE and DNE all races under Appendix P), and, under this rule, those that a protest committee can give when there is a hearing1


.


When there is a hearing, as well as disqualification (DSQ), there is the option of the harsher non-excludable disqualification (DNE) under rule 2, Fair Sailing. When, through Appendix G, Identification on Sails, rule 77 is broken, the protest committee has the option of penalisation (i.e., disqualification) or a warning provided she then complies. When rule 80, Advertising is broken (via WS regulation 20), the regulation provides a range of options from a warning to DSQ in one or more races, with the back-up of rule 69, Misconduct. When rule 64.3, Decisions on Protests Concerning Class Rules, applies, minor deviations caused by wear or damage may result in no penalty, while a measurement disqualification in respect of a deviation not then corrected and not reversed by any appeal will result in retrospective automatic disqualification. Increasingly, the racing rules offer the protest committee the option of giving a penalty less than disqualification. The same option is available when rule 55, Trash Disposal is found to have been broken. When a crew member in danger is helped under rule 41(a) and the boat gains a significant advantage as a result, a protest is possible, but rule 41 permits a ‘penalty less than disqualification’. That might be a place, scoring or time penalty that would at least reverse the value of the advantage. Rule A11 suggests the abbreviation DPI for discretionary penalties.


Sailing instructions can and do change penalties. In events where the competitors are heavily sponsored, the tendency is not to use disqualification, and time penalties are usually used instead, for all but the most severe infringements. Often there is a tariff of time penalties depending on the nature of the infringement, and there may be an element of discretion given to the protest committee as to the ‘length of the sentence’.


The RYA recommends the availability of a post-race scoring penalty (default value 20%), as part of its Rules Disputes Procedure, which seeks to augment (and substantially replace) the protest system with one or both of an informal ‘advisory hearing’ and an arbitration hearing of a lodged protest by a single arbitrator for breaches of rules of Part 2 and of rule 31. The objective is to encourage issues to result in a hearing rather than just be ignored, to dispose of issues more quickly than by a protest hearing, and to allow a penalty of less than disqualification to be accepted as an incentive for compliance with the Basic Principle, Sportsmanship and the Rules2


. Only a party to a protest hearing can be penalised3 . When a protest committee believes from the evidence in a valid


protest hearing that a boat that is not a party to that hearing was involved and broke a rule, and wishes to protest her, it must stop, notify the boat of a protest, and start again with her as an additional party4 a request for redress that a boat broke a rule, it cannot penalise her in that hearing5 protest and then penalise her unless injury or serious damage is suspected6


. Just as a protest cannot be refused because the protest form quotes the wrong rule in relation to the incident7 ,


penalisation will follow even when the protest committee finds that the rule that was broken was not mentioned by the protestor on the protest form.


It may be that it is the protestor that is found to have broken a rule, and is to be disqualified8 , while the protestee can


have the protest against her dismissed because she has not broken a rule, or she can be exonerated because the protestor compelled her to break a rule.


1 In addition there are the warnings and wider ranges of penalties available under rule 64.4, Decisions Concerning Support Persons and rule 69,


Misconduct, whose processes are not protests. 2 Full details are to be found on the RYA website. 3 RYA 2004/1 4 Rules 60.3(a)(2) and 61.1(c). 5 RYA 2001/12 6 Rule 60.3(a) 7 WS 22 8 RYA 2004/1


208 RYA The Racing Rules Explained


. When it realises while hearing , nor can it use that knowledge to


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