Competitors are sometimes upset because of something that happened and want it fixed. What to do about it though? The Racing Rules of Sailing provide the options.

Things you can do about it include:

Protest.
It’s not a bad thing, you may do it, and you probably should. What protesting does is put the matter in front of properly appointed and appropriately qualified people who can look into it independently. Protesting is limited to things concerning a boat. See rule 60 for the details.

Make a scoring enquiry.
If you think there is a problem in the scores, approach the race committee and lodge a scoring enquiry. They can, based on their own records or observations, correct their own errors. See rule 90.3(c) for the details.

Request redress.
If you think your score has been worsened through no fault of your own because of, amongst other reasons, an error by the race or technical committee, request redress. In the olden days, sailors used to refer to this as ‘protesting the race committee’, which is a bit of a misnomer. See rule 62 for the details.

Refer it on, if it was not handled.
A fun fact in the RRS is that if, for whatever reason, the protest committee hasn't had the protest or redress hearing within 30 days, you can send it to Australian Sailing to deal with. We've got no record of this ever being used, but nonetheless, its there. Because its there, a sailor really doesn't have any excuse for not having a protest or redress matter sorted out. See Appendix R 2.1(b) for the details.

Request that the hearing is reopened.
Once it has been handled, a competitor who believes the protest committee may have made a significant error, or has discovered there is significant new evidence, they may ask that the protest committee reopen the hearing and look at it again. See rule 66 for the details.

Request confirmation of the decision.
Okay, under the RRS this option is actually only open to the protest committee, not you. But if you use your manners there’s no harm asking. You can do that. The protest committee can ask Australian Sailing to confirm or correct its decision. This gets treated the same as an appeal, but can fast track the process a bit. See rule 70 and Appendix R for the details.

Appeal.
This you can do yourself. In situations when you believe that the protest committee’s decision or its procedures were incorrect, just use the time available to submit an appeal to Australian Sailing. See rule 70 and Appendix R for the details.

For the competitor to do something about it, to get something fixed, it all starts with a protest if concerning another boat or, in the case of scoring issues, a scoring enquiry or request for redress. All the other options from requesting the hearing be reopened or appealing rely on one of those three being done first. Taking advantage of these options are good because Racing Rules of Sailing control the relationships between competitors, the organising authority, the race, technical and protest committees and explains what their rights and obligations are. By kicking off using one of these options above, the decision making procedures are structured by rules gauranteeing it gets handled properly. The other commonly observed approaches, such as posting on the internet, writing an email copying everyone, or doing it the old fashioned way and complaining at the bar, aren't subject to the structure in the rules and won't fix anything. 

If you know you did the wrong thing under the rules, you can always take a penalty at the time of the incident, retire after finishing or, should the option be available, take a post-race penalty. Taking responsibility for your own mistakes may save your peers all the palaver above. But that will be an article for another day, Part 2.

More about the Racing Rules of Sailing is here.
For information about appeals click here.

By Glen Stanaway