Outside Help

[Vinnie Zammit]

During the final part of a race, the leading 2 boats had to round the last mark to port and go directly to the finish line on a dead run.

The leading boat (A) rounded the mark approximately 2 lengths in front and instead of going to the finish line went towards another buoy. After he had travelled some 2 to 3 boat lengths from the buoy  the race officer called out and told him that he was going in the wrong direction, he immediately altered course to the finish line.

The 2nd placed boat (B) immediately called protest for outside help.

Boat (A) went on to win the race by half a length from (B).

Would be interesting if John Ball or other serious Jurors / Judges voiced their opinion.

 

 

 

[John Ball]

Hi Vinnie,

First, I could not find any cases or calls which may help with your question.

My opinion is that a protest against A would fail - see R 41 (c) and (d)  as the information about the course was freely available to all the skippers.

A request for redress against the RC for yelling out the information may be more appropriate.

A redress hearing would not penalise A, but may award B points equal to first as the improper action of the RC made B's finish position worse. However the hearing may dismiss the claim.

John

 

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by John Ball
added more comments

[John Bennett]

Sounds like amazingly poor sportsmanship by the protester   :-)

[John Ball]

6 minutes ago, John Bennett said:

Sounds like amazingly poor sportsmanship by the protester   

I don't understand why you feel this way John. The skipper of B thinks a rule may have been broken - and his recourse is to protest or request redress - he may be right or wrong, but by going to a hearing, everybody may learn.

In this incident, A is not breaking any rules, and B's issue is actually with the RC person.

John

 

[John949]

Nearest common occurence would be the RO calling out numbers of any boats over the line at the start.  This is often covered in local sailing instructions but could be considered outside assistance according to the letter of the law.  

[Darin Ballington]

4 hours ago, John949 said:

Nearest common occurence would be the RO calling out numbers of any boats over the line at the start.  This is often covered in local sailing instructions but could be considered outside assistance according to the letter of the law.  

Hi John,

 

This covered in Appendix E, E 3.5 and is a requirement of the race team.

[John949]

2 hours ago, Darin Ballington said:

Hi John,

 

This covered in Appendix E, E 3.5 and is a requirement of the race team.

I was thinking of full size racing where ther is no requirement to call out sail numbers but it is often done but perhaps shouldn't be.

[John Ball]

4 hours ago, Barry Chisam said:

In a local full size regatta a competitor tried to protest the committee. His argument was that several boats were ocs at the start. The sail numbers were hailed but his was the last to be hailed and claims he was disadvantaged in that he had to sail further to return and re start correctly.

Even if the RC was found guilty of an improper action by hailing the recalls, the boat would not be eligible for redress due to the 'no fault of her own' condition in R 62.1.

John

[John Bennett]

On 13/04/2021 at 20:03, John Ball said:

I don't understand why you feel this way John. The skipper of B thinks a rule may have been broken - and his recourse is to protest or request redress - he may be right or wrong, but by going to a hearing, everybody may learn.

In this incident, A is not breaking any rules, and B's issue is actually with the RC person.

John

 

Everybody forgets the course at some time.

A did not impinge on B in any way, and had already sailed further than required.

B would not have been thinking "by going to a hearing, everybody may learn", when he protested, more likely "I can gain an advantage here" by protesting.

Perfectly within his rights to protest  BUT in this particular case I think it remains bad sportsmanship if he had pressed his point  :-)

[Graham Elliott]

I had a great incident that I will never forget back in the 90's at an IOM Worlds in Portugal.

Sailing to the finish line in around 4th place in 'A' fleet and feeling very chuffed, the boat in front of me (Paul Jones) was obviously sailing to the wrong finish line ( they had 4 buoys out and changed lines according to wind) so I gave him a gentle nudge, unfortunately for me a fellow GBR skipper and observer to the race witnessed this and proceeded to protest me.

The protest was heard and I was DSQ'd, Jonesy got his 3rd/4th place and bought my beers for the rest of the week.

Guess you can take what you want from that, demotion and free beer or great place, you choose but I certainly learnt my lesson and had a few pints.

 

[Vinnie Zammit]

Hi John,

thanks for your interpretation of the incident, interesting that talking to Graham Bantock, he was of the same opinion as you.

P.S to the incident Boat B withdrew the protest as he felt that it would be wrong to penalise boat A as he had done nothing wrong. Maybe he was not such a bad sportsman after all.