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 race officials can do about it include:

Check boats.
The organising authority can appoint a technical committee to conduct equipment inspection and event measurement. This is almost always done for off the beach classes and one design keelboats, but there is a need for clubs running races under IRC, ORC and CBH rating systems to do the same. This brings integrity to the outcome and reduces reputational risk by making sure there’s an even playing field to begin with. See rule 92 for the details.

Protest.
The race committee, protest committee and technical committee can all do this under rules 60.2, 60.3 and 60.4 respectively. Quite why ¾ of the options of protestor don’t take this up has been lost in the mists of time and instead the mantra is that it’s a ‘self-policing sport’.

It’s not a bad thing to protest, the race, protest and technical committee may do it, and given the proverb popularised in Spiderman comics, they probably should. "With great power comes great responsibility".

What protesting does is put the matter in front of properly appointed and appropriately qualified people who can look into it independently. Race officials doing this relieves competitors from being seen as snitching on their mates. On paper it is not snitching, but in tight knit sailing communities, competitors protesting can be a difficult thing to do. See rule 60 for the details.

Umpire the fleet.
World Sailing have available Appendix UF which is an approved test rule which can be used to implement umpiring for fleet racing. The appendix simply changes the RRS and how the race officials can or must act. See Additional RRS Appendices & Test Rules on the World Sailing website here for details.

Umpire propulsion.
Pumping, rocking, ooching, sculling and repeated tacking are prohibited actions and can be umpired during the race. The protest committee may themselves, or by appointing observers, penalise a boat for propelling itself. See rule 42 and Appendix P for the details.

Request Redress.
If you think a boat’s score has been worsened through no fault of its own because of, amongst other reasons, an error by the race, protest or technical committee, request redress. Each of those committees may request redress. See rules 60 and 62 for the details.

Reopen the hearing.
If the protest committee thinks it may have made a significant error or has significant new evidence, they may choose to reopen the hearing and look at it again. See rule 66 for the details.

Correct scoring errors.
If the race committee thinks there is a problem in the scores they can determine, based on their own records or observations, correct the error. See rule 90.3(c) for the details.

Request confirmation of the decision.
The protest committee can ask Australian Sailing to confirm or correct its decision. This gets treated the same as an appeal, but fast tracks the process a bit. See rule 70 for the details.

For the rules hub, click here.

World Sailing’s RRS webpage is here.

By Glen Stanaway