Protest fees

My club is currently trying to encourage protests and I nearly obliged the other day although mine was an appeal for redress - the RO had written the course differently to the picture drawn next to it and DSQ me for missing out a mark.

How many people actually have a current rule book? You can't know (on the water) if you have a strong case if you don't know the rules.

Because the AC teams leave no stone unturned. Dennis Conner's book was called "no excuse to lose". His premise was that if you knew you'd covered every angle to win, you'd have the mental strength to do so. Apart from which, lawyers in every situation are part of American culture. They have huge numbers of them compared to other countries.

Same here, but there are so many complications and exceptions that catch many people out.

Check out http://www.finckh.org/rspiel/indexe.htm for an interactive rules quiz- to see how much you all know!

Originally posted by Harry44981! i've won/lost 50:50 in protests , as peoples versions of what happened on the water is often very different, and it's one persons word against anothers. I also found that protest strategy helps, so often a protest veteran can win, by putting his/her case forward better, even though they were in the wrong.

  Yeah this is definatly true in some respects. The cadets at our club are good for protests but this is because we do soooo much training for them.

The bit about the rules book and who owns one, I do have to admit that I dont own a current rules book but I own an old one and have updated it. It is definatly a good idea to read up on the rules but even if you know the rules you arent neciseraly guaranteed the correct outcome you need to know who the onus is on to prove what.

And Protest fees are so unbelevably wrong it is changing the attitude of sailing from being a self policing sport to one where you have to go out of your way to do the correct thing and to prove that some one else was in the wrong. If there is no threat of being protested out then most people will not bother to correct a mistake or will blatantly go out of their way not to follow the rules under the assumption that no one will do anythgn about it.

Edited by KnightMare

I would question the legality of protest fees, as they are quite obviously designed to prevent the RRS being correctly implemented. You should initiate a test case and take it to appeal. The cost of financing protest committees (thirsty critters these judges!) should be borne by all competitors and not solely by those competitors who feel that they have been the victim of an infringement. The principle appears to be in total contradiction with the spirit of the Rules.

However, I believe it is traditional to demand a refundable deposit for protests against measurements and rating certificates.

I firmly believe that if in any racing context there are neither boats taking penalties nor protests then the rules are probably being ignored or wilfuly infringed.

I have suggested in my local club that all boats should pay a protest levy at the beginning of the season. This would be refunded if a boat lodges a protest during the season (with possibly a partial refund if a boat protests on the water and the protestee takes a penalty).

Half the profits from the levy would be used for rules and race management training - the other half would be used to run a dinner for those members of the club actively involved in race management.

Since I started running rules evenings there have been a renaissance in  protesting - we find it is very good for bar takings. Now looking forward to the results of my fist appeal!

 

Gordon