Changes in the Racing Rules of Sailing have significantly improved turn-around time on appeal decisions.

The rules controlling appeals and the processes behind them have changed for the first time in many editions of the Racing Rules of Sailing. The change is simple but has a great impact reducing the time it takes to handle them. 

The time permitted to submit an appeal has been reduced from 15 days to seven. This helps because competitors and race committees know when the clock stops ticking and the time for appeals has closed. See Appendix R2.1(a). 

Should an appeal be in play, the time permitted for parties to submit comments in response to the appeal has also been reduced from 15 days to seven. This also helps the appeal panel ‘get on with the job’ sooner. See Appendix R4.1. 

The time allowable to a protest committee to voluntarily seek confirmation or correction of its decision has changed by the same amount; 15 days to seven. This is all for the same reason, providing faster turn-around on Australian Sailing’s decisions. 

The appeal process can be found here on the AS website.
More information on requesting confirmation or correction is found here  

By Melanie Peasey