PART 5
‘Meat in the sandwich’ situations are a regular source of cases related to compulsion. In US 78, Daffodil was the leeward of three overlapped port-tack close-hauled boats. She tacked to starboard, as did Iris to windward of her, but Iris was not able to give Thetis, to windward of her and still on port tack, room to keep clear. Iris was disqualified by the protest committee for not giving room to Thetis. On appeal, Iris was exonerated, since she was compelled to infringe because Daffodil had not given her room under rule 15. Daffodil was disqualified.
Exoneration will also be available to a boat compelled to break a sailing instruction. However, the wording of the sailing instruction may unexpectedly prevent exoneration. In RYA 2005/8, Habanero collided with a moored vessel, causing it to move into the path of Jump the Gun!, which touched the moored vessel. Jump the Gun! was protested by Heartbeat 2 for breaking a sailing instruction that said that ‘an entered boat that collides with or fends off a moored or anchored vessel at any time shall retire and report the collision to the race office.’ Jump the Gun! had reported the collision, but had not retired. The protest committee noted that Habanero had retired, and exonerated Jump the Gun!, by implication because Jump the Gun! was compelled to break the sailing instruction because of an infringement by Habanero. Heartbeat 2 appealed. The appeal was upheld, and Jump the Gun! was disqualified.
The sailing instruction does not say ‘a boat shall not collide with or fend off a moored or anchored vessel’. Rather it imposes an obligation on a boat when a collision occurs, namely to retire and report the incident. The collision itself is not prohibited. Nothing that Habanero did prevented Jump the Gun! from complying with the requirement in the sailing instruction to retire, and so exoneration under rule 64.1(b) is not appropriate. She failed to retire, thus breaking the sailing instruction, and is therefore disqualified for not retiring, by virtue of rule 64.1(a). Nor does any part of rule 62, Redress, allow any compensation.
For the same reason, it should be noted that Habenero did not break the sailing instruction. Indeed, she complied with it by retiring.
Jump the Gun! refers to several cases in support of her exoneration. These were all situations where a boat was compelled to break a ‘shall not’ rule.
In summary, a boat is to be exonerated only when compelled by another boat’s infringement to fail to comply with what the rule concerned obliges her to do or not do.
Exoneration under this rule is the prerogative of the protest committee. However, rule 21 now offers ‘instant exoneration’ at the time of an incident in many situations. Exoneration under that rule is, in effect, self-assessed. However, if the either boat in an incident does not see it that way, there may be a protest. If that implicit self- assessed exoneration is endorsed by the facts found by the protest committee, then it appears that the protest committee can refer to either or both of rules 21 and 64.1(a) as the applicable rules in their decision.
If a boat has taken an applicable penalty, she shall not be further penalized under this rule unless the penalty for a rule she broke is disqualification that is not excludable from her series score. When a boat breaks a rule of Part 2 or rule 31, and then takes a turn(s) penalty or even retires, this will normally insure her against penalisation in any protest against her. However, if the protest committee decides that she also broke rule 2, Fair Sailing as well, the penalty she took will not insure her against a non-excludable disqualification (DNE) if this higher level penalty is preferred to DSQ by the protest committee. Neither will her retirement preclude a protest and a DNE when the sailing instructions prescribe DNE as the penalty for breaking one of them1
. If the race is restarted or resailed, rule 36 applies.
As that rule says, a restart or a resail wipes out most sins, other than ‘adhesive’ starting penalties under the Z flag rule, the black flag rule, the misconduct rule or, under rule 14, when the boat has caused injury or serious damage, and the possibility of penalization under rule 69, Misconduct.
1 RYA 2005/5 RYA The Racing Rules Explained 211
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