Olympic Games 1996

IYRU Olympic Updates

TYPES OF HEARING

The system of processing protests and other grievances resulting from incidents in a yacht race is a service to competitors. No one likes protests; they often cause people to get upset ,they delay the results, they consume time which could be better spent in merriment. But when you've been involved in an incident and you feel aggrieved about it, you need this service.

A hearing is a formal procedure in which a committee listens to evidence, assesses and decides on validity, finds facts, and makes a decision. There are several types of hearings, the protest hearing being the most common. The requirements needing to be satisfied for each type of hearing to be valid differ considerably. An invalid protest or request cannot proceed and must be 'refused', a valid protest or request must proceed and will, after a hearing, be 'upheld' or 'dismissed'.

The procedure is the same, whether the incident happened at a small club in the Tuesday evening race resulting in the once-in-a-year protest, or in a championship to decide the world champion.

Sometimes a yacht lodges a protest when she should be requesting redress. The skipper might have ticked the wrong box on the form. A good protest committee will recognise this and simply accept the protest form as though it were a request for redress and proceed accordingly, applying the relevant tests for validity.

Protest hearing, yacht v yacht

The most usual type of hearing is the yacht versus yacht protest hearing, in which one yacht protests another yacht. However, a yacht may protest several other yachts, or several yachts may protest one yacht. In either case, if the protest relates to a single incident, then a single hearing would normally be appropriate. The requirements to be satisfied for a protest to be valid include a hail, the prompt and conspicuous display of a protest flag, and timely lodging of a written document.

Protest hearing-committee v yacht

The race committee (or the protest committee if there is one) may protest a yacht or any number of yachts, but just as a yacht has to satisfy certain requirements for her protest to be valid, so must the committee, though the validity requirements are not so onerous. The committee does not have to inform the yacht immediately after the incident (which means the yacht might be deprived of the opportunity to exonerate herself by taking a penalty). The committee does have to inform the yacht in writing, by 1800 the following day.

Neither the race committee nor the protest committee is ever obliged to protest or initiate a hearing. It is usually appropriate for it to do so when the alleged infringement involves serious damage, or the perpetrator has gained a significant advantage, or when the sport might be brought into disrepute by action not being taken.

There is nothing in the rules to compel a race committee to appoint a separate protest committee (when there isn't already one appointed) to hear the case, but if its own conduct is the subject of the case, justice will not be seen to be done if it doesn't.

So the party (or parties) initiating a case may be a yacht, or several yachts, or the race committee, or the protest committee, or a jury. The 'protestee' (the defendant) is always a yacht (or yachts) (except in a Rule 75 hearing when the protestee is always a person).

Measurement protest hearing

At major events an official measurer is sometimes appointed. A measurer may check the yachts comply with their class or measurement rules. Unlike the discretion given to a protest committee as to whether or not to initiate a hearing when it sees an infringment, the official measurer has some very definite powers and responsibilities. Where something is wrong and can be put right before a race, he must request the owner to correct the defect, failing which he must report the matter to the race committee which must reject or rescind the entry. When he concludes after a race that the yacht does not comply with her class rules, the measurer must inform the protest committee, and the protest committee must call a hearing.

A yacht may protest another yacht when there is evidence of a measurement infringement, and of course when the protest committee receives a valid protest from a yacht, the protest committee must proceed with a hearing.

Having heard the evidence, if the protest committee is in 'no reasonable doubt' as to the 'interpretation or application' of the measurement rule, it may decide the case, either dismissing it or penalising the yacht. When the committee is in doubt, it must refer the question to 'an authority qualified to resolve such question'. This would normally be the measurement committee of the class. Having received the authority's ruling, the protest committee must be governed by it.

Redress hearing
When a yacht claims her finishing position (in a race or a series) has been materially prejudiced by an 'improper action' of the race committee (or the protest committee), she may 'seek redress'. The process is sometimes (wrongly) called 'protesting the race committee'. Some examples: the race committee sets a course that is misunderstood by some yachts that sail a course different to the rest of the fleet; a buoy is moved as yachts are sailing towards it; an error is made in calculating the final scores in a series.

A yacht may also seek redress when her finishing position has been materially prejudiced after giving assistance to a person or yacht in distress (which Fundamental Rule A compels her to do), or when whe is physically damaged by another vessel (which is usually, but not always, a sailing yacht) which was required to keep clear (by either the racing rules or the collision regulations), or for one or two other more unusual reasons.

When the claim for redress meets the requirements, the protest committee is required to 'make as equitable an arrangement as possible for all yachts concerned'. This usually means giving the claimant points equal to an artificial finishing position. Rarely would the committee's obligation be satisfied by declaring a race void.

Hearing to investigate a starting or finishing infringement

Because the race committee may score as 'did not start' or did not finish' a yacht without a hearing for failing to start or finish, the rules give the right to a yacht thus penalised to request a hearing to investigate a claim that she was wrongly penalised. On receipt of such a request, the race committee must arrange a hearing (or having realised it has made an error, put the matter right). The rules are not clear as to whether the race committee may conduct its own hearing when a jury has been appointed but it is usual for the protest committee to conduct all hearings.

A request for a hearing can be made orally, but if there is doubt as to whether the request will be acted upon, then it is best to submit it in writing.

Hearing to investigate a rule 54 disqualification

At dinghy championships, sailing instructions often prescribe that the protest committee may disqualify without a hearing a yacht it considers has infringed rule 54 (Propulsion). Typically this is when there is a protest committee that takes on the job of sending pairs of observers afloat on motor boats to record rule 54 infringements using tape recorders. A member of the protest committee or one of its appointed observers must have actually seen the infringement; the committee cannot disqualify a yacht on hearsay evidence. The disqualification is usually indicated in the race results, so when there is a sailing instruction prescribing this procedure, it is important for competitors to inspect the results.

A yacht thus disqualified is entitled to a hearing on request. This is best done in writing and submitted to the race office. For example 'Yacht 12345 requests a hearing in respect of the disqualification for an alleged infringment of rule 54 in race number 3, signed Ivor Grievance, time and date'.

When the protest committee was the body that disqualified the yacht in the first place, it may seem unjust that it will now be hearing the case, especially since at the commencement of the hearing the yacht is 'guilty' and will remain so unless she can establish her 'innocence'. Those members of the committee who saw the infringement must give the evidence which led to the disqualification, and the yacht's representative, using any witnesses and his own evidence, must establish either that the yacht wasn't doing what the committee witnesses say she was doing, or that what she was doing didn't infringe rule 54.

If the yacht succeeds (which happens occasionally), the decision to disqualify is reversed; otherwise the decision to disqualify is simply confirmed.

Re-opened hearing

A yacht may request that a hearing be re-opened, but for the request to be upheld (and a hearing re-opened) the yacht must have been a 'party to the protest' (a protestor or a protestee or subjected to a penalty). Furthermore, the yacht must satisfy the protest committee either that 'it may have made a significant error' (from the requester's point of view of course that means the protest committee has penalised him and it should have penalised the other yacht or dismissed the protest), or that material new evidence has become available within a reasonable time. The request must be received by 1800 on the day following the original decision (although the committee can extend this time limit).
When these requirements have not been satisfied, the protest committee cannot re-open the hearing. Conversely, although the rules don't say as much, natural justice requires that when the requirements have been satisfied, the protest committee must re-open the hearing.

Without a request from a party, the committee can decide to re-open a hearing when the requirements have been met.

Often, a decision by a protest committee indirectly affects other yachts. For example, redress might be given to a yacht by giving her an artificial finishing position, and his adversely affects the overall standing of other yachts. One of these yachts might request a re-opening with the objective of convincing the committee that the redress if gave was too generous or ill-conceived. However, as these yachts were not party to the original protest they have no right to request a re-opening. However, they could request redress, and a sensible committee would accept a re-opening request for redress.

'Rule 75' hearing

When a protest committeee has reasonable grounds for believing that a competitor has committed 'a gross infringement of the rules' or 'a gross breach of good manners or sportsmanship', it may call a hearing to investigate the matter. The decision to proceed is often made after receiving a report from another competitor or an official.

A yacht or competitor cannot protest another competitor for 'infringing rule 75'. In fact rule 75 cannot actually be infringed because it doesn't actually place an obligation on a competitor or a yacht. However, a competitor (or a spectator or anyone else) can inform the protest committee (or race committee if there is no protest committee) when there is evidence of cheating or offensive behaviour, and the committee can initiate a hearing. Since heavy penalties can be imposed, it would be foolish not to comply with the implied obligations in rule 75: to act at all times in a sportsmanlike way, not infringe rules intentionally in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage, and behave reasonably.

Although the protest committee has considerable discretion when it comes to imposing a penalty, and all or part of the penalty might be imposed on a yacht rather than the person concerned, the 'protestee' is always a person or people.

Some examples of the type of behaviour that have been the subject of rule 75 hearings are: cheating (such as shifting ballast in a keelboat), knowingly omitting to round a mark, lying at a hearing, fighting on and off the water, and using language that causes offense.

Sometimes there is no penalty, though the committee might give a warning. If a penalty is given it can be as much as disqualification from the entire regatta or series. When a penalty is imposed, it has to be reported to the national authorities of the event, the competitor, and the yacht, and those national authorities may extend the penalty, for example by suspending a competitor's eligbility within the area under the jurisdiction of the national authority. The International Yacht Racing Union may then extend the suspension worldwide.

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