PART 5


Abandonment should be the last resort, not the first, and, as with abandonment under rule 32.1 by the race committee after at least one boat has finished, rule 64.2 asks the protest committee ‘Are you sure?’ In RYA 1988/4, ten Merlin Rockets started the race in question. Five retired, four of them shortly after beginning the second round because the wind was dying and there was a long leg against the tide. The fifth retired rather further on but without passing the last two marks of the course. Returning, she crossed the finishing line, apparently from the direction from the last course mark, was given a finishing signal and recorded as first. The other boats that sailed the course and finished were given positions behind the erroneously recorded ‘winner’.


The five other boats that finished correctly requested redress. The protest committee’s decision was to abandon the race. Two of the five boats appealed on the grounds that five competitors had sailed the course correctly and should not be deprived of their results merely because the race officer had made an error in giving a finishing place to a boat that had in fact retired. The protest committee stated in its observations that when the race started the warning flag had not been lowered with the starting signal, thus leading to confusion, in which some boats started late, and that therefore the race should be abandoned. The appeals were upheld, the abandonment of the race was annulled and the race was reinstated.


The five boats that completed the two-round course are to be scored for finishing positions in the sequence in which they finished. The boats that retired (including the erroneously recorded ‘winner’) are to be scored RET. The protest committee acted correctly in inquiring into the occurrences before and at the start. However, there was no recall signal and no boats were recorded as OCS; no boat lodged any request for redress on the grounds that the start was unfair or that any finishing positions were prejudiced by the time differences when starting. When boats are entitled to redress, and the nature of the appropriate redress is clear, a protest committee cannot instead abandon the race, citing an error made by the race officer earlier in the race about which no boat has requested redress and the race committee has taken no action1.


Sometimes, there is no alternative to abandonment. In RYA 1999/6, in a youth event on a reservoir with 259 boats, parking and launching arrangements were difficult. The Topper fleet of 111 boats had a single start, (warning signal scheduled for 1130), and on the first day found their launching delayed. A sailing instruction prohibited launching until a black ball signal was lowered. The signal was still displayed at 1100.


Just after 1100, a race official, realising that the black ball signal should have been removed, but unable to get this done promptly, told several competitors that they could now launch, and some did so. The black ball was lowered at 1105. The race officer started the race five minutes before the scheduled time. As a result, many boats were unable to reach the starting area in time for a reasonable start and requested redress.


The protest committee found that they had been affected by the race committee errors, and granted redress by abandoning the race. Walsdos and other Toppers requested redress in their turn, asking for the race to be reinstated with individual boats getting some other form of redress. This was refused and Walsdos appealed. In her appeal she suggested that the sailing instruction prohibiting launching before the signal was lowered had been overruled by the action of the race official. The appeal was dismissed.


While it is to be avoided when more equitable arrangements are available, abandonment may, very occasionally, be the least unfair option. In this case, the launching problems were considerably aggravated by the start being made early and the effects of the race committee’s errors on the fleet (not just on the boats seeking redress) are unquantifiable. The RYA sees no grounds for overturning the protest committee’s decision at the time in favour of some other imperfect arrangement. The applicant is not correct when he says that the black ball signal had been overruled by the race officer. This could be effected only by a change to sailing instructions. Any earlier launching broke this sailing instruction, and any boat that decided not to launch until the signal was lowered was correct to wait.


1 The principle is correct, although the case is questionable as concerns the automatic scoring as RET of the erroneously recorded winner. As the cases on rule 28.1 indicate, that boat should have been protested. But by whom? And when?


214 RYA The Racing Rules Explained


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