Protests by jury on the water

On the other hand, if a boat T bones another in front of the Jury boat but there is no protest then, under current policy, the Jury can do nothing. I can understand the frustration of some judges in this case.

Gordon

Originally posted by gordon I should perhaps have quoted th first sentence of the Basic Principle: Competitors in the sport ofsailing are governed by a body of rules that they are expected to follow and enforce. The "and enforce" is interesting - sailors are also referees! The first person on who they should enforce the rules is on themselves. Gordon

At present rule 60.3 allows protest committee to protest a boat, either because they witnessed the incident or because they receive a report (in certain circumstances). ISAF policy (not a rule!) is to restrict the use of this power to a limited number of circumstances (see initial post).

Some judges have proposed widening slightly the spectrum of infringements that juries will protest to include contact between boats.

I would not consider the Jury as an enforcing body (except in the case of rule 42, for which there was general consensus that self-policing was not working). The Jury is primarily involved in dispute reslolution. The central principle of self-policing is that any infringement should be resolved by the infringing boat taking a penalty (ie enforcing the rules on themselves). Recourse to the protest committee should only be necessary when the parties involved are unable to agree on who infringed. The role of the jury is to facilitate and encourage self-policing. Most judges take this role very seriously.

If two boats make contact a rule had been broken. The infringing boat should take a penalty, or a protest lodged. The proposiotion is that the Jury be given the possiblity of deciding, in view of what they have witnessed, to protest both boats under rule 14 -once it is established who is ROW boat they may well be exonerated. As for all other jury protests this decision to protest would have to be made  by the whole jury.

The case raised by Andymac is interesting. If the Jury was aware of the relationship between the boats (being members of the same national team would be sufficient in many cases) then they may well protest under rule 2 as this is possibly a case of team racing.

Gordon

Originally posted by Andymac Now what if the contact was minimal and the ROW/keep clear was less clear cut?

Lets go back to first principles.

BASIC PRINCIPLE SPORTSMANSHIP AND THE RULES Competitors in the sport of sailing are governed by a body of rules that they are expected to follow and enforce. A fundamental principle of sportsmanship is that when competitors break a rule they will promptly take a penalty, which may be to retire.

So if you know you have broken a rule then not take take a penalty is cheating, nothing more and nothing less. Of course eventually you do get to a gray area: did I or did I not touch that mark/loose tiller extension, whatever. Was I over the line or not? I can remember one incident when I shouted to the boats round me "does anyone know whose fault that was?"

But for every instance where I've seen the rules over-enforced I must have seen a hundred instances that verged on cheating.

Edited by JimC - 19 Dec 11 at 2:05pm