Rule 32.1 says, in part, “After the starting signal, the race committee may shorten the course (display flag S with two sounds) or abandon the race (display flag N, N over H, or N over A, with three sounds), as appropriate, …
(a) because of an error in the starting procedure,
(b) because of foul weather,
(c) because of insufficient wind making it unlikely that any boat will finish within the time limit,
(d) because a mark is missing or out of position, or
(e) for any other reason directly affecting the safety or fairness of the competition.”
The rule goes on to say that if even one boat has sailed the course and finished within the time limit, if any, the race committee cannot abandon a race without considering the consequences for all boats in the race or series.
The parts of rule 32.1 I’d like to address here are the clause in (e) and the lack of any time limit for when the race committee might abandon a race. Lately, I’ve heard about and experienced two rather bizarre applications of (e) above. In both cases, the abandonment happened after the race was concluded – in fact, after all the sailors, and the race committee, were off the water.
The first situation was at a major regatta a few years ago. There was some confusion about what mark to round, and consequently some boats in the fleet went around the wrong mark. They were protested, the protest committee disqualified them for not sailing the course, and they then filed for redress, claiming that the fault was the race committee’s, not theirs.
The protest committee met to consider the redress issue, and brought in a number of skippers, as well as the race committee chairman, as witnesses. They determined that the error had in fact been entirely due to the race committee’s error, but rather than abandoning the race they decided to give average points to the four boats that had gone around the wrong mark.
Meanwhile, the race committee chairman had also become convinced that the error was his. He considered the consequences of abandonment to the boats that had rounded the mark correctly, but on balance he felt that it was unfair for some boats to have to go around a longer course than others, so he decided that the race should be abandoned. The abandonment was announced while the protest committee was still holding the redress hearing. You can imagine their surprise when they came out of the room and discovered that the race they had just been contemplating had been abandoned without their consent! There was, of course, a redress hearing, and I confess I don’t remember the final outcome. But according to the rules, the boats filing for redress had to demonstrate that the abandonment was “improper”, and I know that many judges (including myself) interpret that word very narrowly: Basically, for an action by the race committee to be improper, it has to either break a rule or be so egregiously unfair that it fails the “sniff test” for propriety (as for example when a race committee shortens a Junior regatta race because the local long-shot kid is winning). In our abandonment case, the race committee’s decision appears to have complied with the rules, and I’m not sure it meets the standard of impropriety. They did consider the consequences of abandonment on all the competitors, as required by rule 31.1, and having some boats disqualified for a race committee mistake was surely unfair to those boats.
The second case occurred just a few weeks ago. Again, it was a major regatta; this time, a team-race event. At the finish of one important race, the umpires mistakenly thought a boat had hailed the umpired to resolve a protest decision (displaying a yellow flag as required by Appendix D). So they penalized one of the boats involved in the incident that had led to the protest. That boat had already finished, so she was obliged to do two turns, return to the course side of the line, and finish again. She did so, and as a result her team lost the race.
The losing team requested redress, citing both the blown call and the race committee’s scoring – they claimed the race committee should have scored the boat’s first finish because the penalty was illegally imposed by the umpires. The protest committee decided not to award redress because rule D2.4(c) says, in part, “There shall be no request for redress or appeal by a boat arising from a decision, action or non-action by an umpire.” The blown call was clearly an action by an umpire, so redress could not be granted for it. And the race committee had scored the boat correctly because she had indeed done her turns and finished again.
Then the race committee chairman got into the act. He felt that the umpire’s action had been clearly unfair, so, after considering the consequences of abandoning the race on the other team (they would lose a victory they had not actually won on the water), he abandoned the race. The race was re-sailed the next morning, and the team that had been scored as winning the original race won the re-sail, so there was no request for redress.
Note that in both cases above, the race committee action had the effect of overruling a protest committee decision. In the first case, the abandonment granted a particular redress remedy different from what the protest committee had come up with; and in the second case, the abandonment effectively granted redress where the rules specify that no redress is permitted. Also note that in both cases, the race was long over.
There are lots of other examples of races abandoned after they have been completed, and last year both US SAILING and the British Royal Yachting Association submitted changes to rule 32.1, limiting the time when a race committee can abandon a race. (We wanted to end this option when the race committee came ashore; the RYA wanted to end it after the racing was completed.) The proposals were opposed by the ISAF Race Officials Committee on the grounds that they constituted unwarranted interference in the race committees’ business, and the Racing Rules Committee rejected them.
This leaves an interesting question: When is the last time a race committee can abandon a race? They apparently can do so after the race is over and everybody is ashore, and I don’t see anything that would prevent them from abandoning a race several days after it was run but during the regatta, if they determine that the race in question was “unfair” and if they consider the impact of abandonment on the other boats. (“Well, Mary, what will be the effect on the other boats if we abandon the race?” “Well, Bob, the boats that are now scored in that race will lose those scores.” “OK, Mary, thanks. We’ve now considered the effect of abandonment on the other boats. Race abandoned.”)
But what if the race committee discovers some unfairness in a race, after the last race is run? After the prizes have been given out? After everybody has gone home? How about a week, month, or even a year later? Can the race committee of the America’s Cup in 1987 (when the New York Yacht Club lost the Cup) decide that the last race of that Defense was unfair, and abandon that race?
This is certainly an interesting question, and I’m not sure it will be resolved anytime soon, given the ISAF RRC rejection of the American and British submissions last year.
But the more I think about it, the less I think the problem is the timing of these abandonments. I think the key problem might be that “fairness” is too vague a word. What is fair to one boat may seem grotesquely unfair to another, and, unlike a protest committee, the race committee need not hear both sides of that argument.
Suppose a race begins in 8 knots of breeze, and the first of two windward/leeward laps goes well. Then the wind dies out and fills in from astern. The tail-end boats catch the new breeze, and it becomes clear that they will sail around the hole where the leaders are sitting, becalmed, and the last will be first.
The race committee observes this and says, “Hey, that’s unfair, isn’t it? Those leaders worked hard in good breeze to go to the front of the fleet, and now the tail-enders are going to sail right around them and finish first, simply because they were lucky enough to be where the wind filled in first.” Can they abandon the race? I think rule 32.1 says “Yes,” but I’m not happy with that. Aren’t vagaries in the wind (even unfair vagaries) part of sailboat racing?
How about if, in the middle of a dinghy race, a large cruising boat cuts across the race course? If only a few boats make it across the boat’s bows and the rest are delayed substantially, I’m guessing that the race committee would abandon the race under rule 32.1(e). But how about if the only boats affected are at the back of the fleet? I’m guessing most race committees wouldn’t abandon for them. How fair is that?
It seems to me that this whole fairness issue is a slippery slope.
Should the rule be changed, maybe by limiting rule 32.1(e) to unfairness caused by race committee actions? And if you think there should be a time after which a race committee should not be able to abandon a race, what do you think that time limit should be?
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