Don’t Forfeit Your Right to Protest

This is a follow-up to the previous post “Who Wears the Zebra Stripes in this Sport.” Once I get started down a path, I have to follow it all the way to the end. With that said, I’ve got to knock out one more cluster of thoughts about the racing rules of sailing. I promise, at the end of this post, I’ll move on to something a bit more fun. Well, no, I won’t assert that either. It will just be something different.

For non-sailors, the first paragraph is a bit technical, so hang in there…

Imagine you are out for a local regatta. There’s 15-20 boats of various skills. You find yourself at a busy leeward mark rounding, inside four other boats, with all the rights granted to your fortuitous location. Another boat, riding a slight puff, closes on the five boat pinwheel trying to negotiate the turn to weather. The interloper is on port, like everybody else, and pointed right at your transom. To go around the pinwheel, the skipper would have to make a hasty gybe, and risk colliding with the boats coming from further behind. So what does the skipper do? Centerline the sails and try to slow down, so as to maintain the position behind you. For the most part, the skipper is successful at applying the brakes. With the skippers outside of you yelling, “You can’t go in there! Don’t do it!” and other more nautical terms of disapproval, the boat glides right up to your stern, and just as you execute your turn around the mark, ever so lightly lands a glancing kiss on your transom. You can hardly feel the contact. “Whew! I thought that was about to get ugly!” you say to your crew, then you turn around to the offending boat and say, “How about doing some turns.” The offending skipper says not a word, rounds the mark, tacks off on starboard to clear the fleet, and appears to bear off sharply. Satisfied that the offending boat is off to the side taking a penalty, you focus on your next leg, get a lucky shift, and go on to win the race.

It’s a great day! Fist bumps with the crew for the first race win of the season. You’re riding high, collecting the congratulations of the boats around you, but when you get back to the dock, you discover there is a serious gouge in the transom of your boat. It’s deep into the fiberglass. There are little spider cracks radiating out from the initial point of contact. You know this is way beyond your ability to repair. It’s going to require a visit to an expert, and maybe a few missed races. It’s going to cost money, and maybe an insurance claim. Suddenly the day doesn’t seem so great. Adding insult to injury, the boat that cause the damage finished second in the race, and won the regatta. How could that be? That skipper should have been miles behind after doing two circles, but instead he’s collecting the hardware. Now your heart sinks because you know it’s too late to do anything about it. And the more offensive part? You and your insurance company are on the hook for the repairs because the other guy’s insurance company will say, “What was the outcome of the protest? Wait there wasn’t a protest? Well, we’re not paying out on something that you can’t prove was our customer’s fault.”

What happened here? How did the offending boat win? Who is going to foot the bill? This story would have turned out a lot different if you had done just a couple little things differently.

First, instead of chatting with your crew, at the first reasonable opportunity, you should have said “Protest,” to the offending skipper, (and flown the red flag if required.) He was right there, he was obviously paying attention to what was going on at that moment- pretty much the definition of “the first reasonable opportunity.” By not doing so, you just forfeited your right to protest later on. That’s right! FORFEITED your right to protest. The protest committee is going to ask if you said “protest” and when you said it. If you didn’t even say it, end of protest hearing.

The next thing you should have done is watched, or had a crew member watch, the other boat actually take the penalty. Maybe even get another boat to agree to be a witness. While the rules don’t charge this action as an admission of guilt, the insurance company may see it it as acceptance of responsibility.

Finally, at the finish, you should have followed the protest procedure specified in the Rules and sailing instructions, proceeding with the protest until such time as you could confirm there was, or was not, damage to your boat. No damage and the other boat took a penalty? Fine and dandy, drop the protest. If there was damage, continue with the protest. Get all the testimony, facts and findings in writing. Get a copy of the protest forms and scores. This is now your claim against the insurance company.

One last bit, learned the hard way. Don’t let anybody railroad you into a definition of “damage.” A mark, scuff, scratch, dimple or dent you wouldn’t accept on a brand new car, shouldn’t be discounted just because it’s on your racing boat. If the protest committee doesn’t think your boat was “damaged,” ask them if it’s OK to go do the same thing to their boat or car. You will quickly get a different answer about the definition of damage. Boats are expensive, and often difficult or time consuming to repair. Many boats can’t be replaced or repaired at any price because they aren’t built anymore.

Sailing isn’t supposed to be a contact sport, and you shouldn’t forfeit your protest rights just because you might hurt somebody’s feelings. If you and I have an encounter of the unwanted kind on the race course, please have confidence in your knowledge of the rules, assert yourself, and say “Protest.”