PART 1
Participation creates obligation, as RYA 1999/3 shows. Shock’s owner disagreed with a sailing instruction, and wrote to the race committee claiming that it was dangerous, and that he would hold the club liable should damage result. Shock then raced, and was disqualified without a hearing by the race committee. The protest committee, refusing redress, decided that the repudiation of the sailing instruction had invalidated Shock’s entry. It changed the DSQ to DNS, saying that Shock had made herself ineligible to race.
On appeal, Shock was reinstated to a finishing position, since, despite anything she had written, her participation signified her acceptance of the rules, which, as defined, includes the sailing instructions.
SC 24 confirms that a boat cannot pick and choose which rules to comply with. P was disqualified under rule 10 for a collision that dismasted S, and also under rule 1.1 for not giving help. P appealed the rule 1.1 DSQ on the grounds that giving help might have invalidated her insurance (presumably as some sort of admission of liability). This was rejected, since P had bound herself to be governed by all the rules, rule 1.1 included.
Rules 3(b) and (c) purport to exclude the civil courts and civil arbitration from ‘determination of any matter arising under the rules’. This means deciding the facts related to an incident, concluding that a rule has or has not been broken, and awarding a resulting penalty under the racing rules. It does not preclude taking legal action to seek compensation for damage arising from an incident. Rule 67 says that the question for damages arising from a breach of any rule shall be governed by the prescriptions, if any, of the national authority. The RYA prescribes (and other national authorities have similar prescriptions) that issues of liability or claims for damages arising from an incident while a boat is bound by the Racing Rules of Sailing shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts and not considered by a protest committee.
It is not just financial matters that give rise to attempts to go to law to reverse the findings of protest committees and appeal committees. Competitors have resorted (unsuccessfully) to the Court for Arbitration for Sport to seek to overturn decisions of the Olympic jury. Outside of the Olympic Games, the writ of the Court is ‘to resolve through the appeals arbitration procedure disputes concerning the decisions of federations, associations or other sports-related bodies, insofar as the statutes or regulations of the said sports-related bodies or a specific agreement so provide.’ For non-Olympic sailing, neither the World Sailing regulations nor the Racing Rules of Sailing make any other explicit provision for recourse to the court other than on issues related to doping, and so the final arbiter of most racing rules issues is intended to be either a non-appealable international jury or the national authority appeals committee1
.
One of the racing rules that applies by virtue of participation in a race is the Part 2 preamble, which says that the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (IRPCAS) apply when a boat sailing under the racing rules meets a boat that is not, but that, as between boats that are racing, it is the rules of Part 2 of the Racing Rules of Sailing that apply. Also relevant is rule 48, Fog Signals and Lights; Traffic Separation Schemes. This rule is necessary to make fog signals, navigation lights, and, now, compliance with IRPCAS rule 10, Traffic Separation Schemes an issue for protest and penalization under the racing rules2
.
Being bound by the rules will in fact usually begin before ‘participation’, since rule 3 says that acceptance of the rules will result from ‘intending to participate in a race’. The simplest proof of such an intention will be lodging an entry. Entering means agreeing to comply with the notice of race, in which there are often obligations to be complied with before a race. Class rules and the sailing instructions may also contain other pre-race obligations.
1 For the UK, this is the RYA’s Racing Rules Committee 2 RYA 1989/6
RYA The Racing Rules Explained 27
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