PART 5
This follows WS 31, which adds that no redress is due when the boat knew she was OCS – indeed by not returning and starting she breaks rule 2 and has not complied with the Basic Principle, Sportsmanship and the Rules.
When redress is due to a boat for having gone to help another boat, then it may be possible simply to deduct the time taken in giving help from her finishing time, if both can be established. In practice, given the short duration of most races, the helper might not be able to resume the race and finish in the time limit, or times might not be recorded, and the position of the helper in the race before she gave the help might be a better guide.
Redress for giving help in oceanic races can be difficult, even if all the relevant times are known. Daffodil responds to an emergency call from Iris, which is some miles away at a right angle to Daffodil’s course. She takes 20 hours to go to Iris and to help her. She then resumes her course towards the next mark or finishing line. Is it just a question of deducting 20 hours from Daffodil’s finishing time? Usually not. In going to help, in being delayed and in sailing the rest of the race in a different part of the ocean, she may have been affected by wind and weather conditions that she would not have encountered on her original course. A benefit of 20 hours might move her up or down many places compared with her expected finishing position. Fortunately, the positions of all boats in such races are plotted at frequent intervals, and redress can be calculated by reference to her charted position in the race relative to others when she departs her course to give help. But when boats are spread across the ocean, so there is no reliable reference boat to establish what might have happened if Daffodil had not gone to help, even this can be difficult. However, it is now possible to run ‘what if’ simulations, if the race committee has access to such software.
This adjustment of finishing times is specifically contemplated in rule 64.2. The places will follow from the redress granted. If however the data for granting a time benefit as redress is not available, and it is decided to adjust the scoring, that means in effect the awarding of points for a particular finishing place, as given as an example in rule A10(c). A scoring redress based on a position may be appropriate to redress under any clause of rule 62.1. The question then arises what to do about the scores of other boats – if Daffodil stops racing to give help when in 10th position, which is awarded to her as redress, are those whose race scores before redress was granted was 10th or lower to be moved down one place? If the redress arises from an incident so close to the finishing line, or when the boats were so widely spread, that her finishing in 10th place was a near certainty had not the incident occurred, then to move down the others might be appropriate. However, where such certainty is not possible, the usual procedure would be not to change the results of other boats, so that the race scores would include a 9th, two boats tied on 10th, then an 11th, 12th etc. The decision has to be an explicit one, since ties resulting from redress are not covered by rule A7, Race Ties (and so the outcome would not be to rescore two 10ths as 10.5 points each). In the 2008-2009 Vendée Globe round the world race, a boat in third place at two-thirds distance gave help, but in the process damaged herself and had to retire. The jury awarded redress of third equal place, based on her position at the time of the incident. Later, the boat lying second retired, and so the redressed boat was now equal third with a boat that had been many miles astern at the time of the incident. She did not seek any adjustment, perhaps because the international jury might have found that, given that only eleven of the thirty starters finished the race, she could quite likely have herself turned out to be a DNF had the incident not happened, and so the redress first awarded would have stood. A bird in the hand…
If one of the other two ‘average points’ options marked for consideration in rule A10 are considered, then there is no need to change the positions of other boats since the value of those average points will fall where they will, and the resulting scores for the race will follow automatically. Average points for all the other races in the series (A10(a)) is better when the incident occurs early in the series, but its value will fluctuate race by race as the series progresses. When the incident occurs later in the series, so that there already a good track record from which to calculate the average, the average of races before the race in question (A10(b)) gives the boat in question and her competitors the certainty of knowing what that redress score is for the remaining races.
WS 116 considers damage that prevents a boat from sailing a large proportion of an event’s races. If you are second in race 1 and fifth in race 2 of a five-race series, and damage in race 3 means that you do not finish that race or compete in the last two races, what should your redress be? Average points in races 1 and 2 applied to the remaining three races might win you the regatta. However, that would not be the fairest arrangement for all boats affected (see rule 64.2). The protest committee should ensure that, after excluding her worst score, more than half of a boat’s race scores are based on her finishing positions in races that she starts. In the case in question, a protest committee might limit redress to just the race in which the damage occurred.
RYA The Racing Rules Explained 213
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