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Each PC must have a chair to act as presiding officer and spokesperson. When it is necessary for the PC to speak to the RC, competitors, the OA, the press, or others, the chair should be the spokesperson for the PC. The chair derives its authority from the PC as a whole and has only one vote. The chair should be certain that the opinions of each judge are heard and considered by the entire PC and be willing to act as directed by the consensus in spite of personal desires. Whenever possible, the chair should be a US SAILING Certified Judge. When a prospective judge is serving as chair to gain experience, the panel should contain a least one US SAILING Certified Judge to provide guidance and advice as necessary.
When the PC divides into more than one panel to hear and decide protests, the chair of each panel should, if possible, be a US SAILING Certified Judge (or international equivalent). For consistency, the chair may decide to have all requests for redress on the same subject heard by the same panel.
A jury that is on the water will monitor race procedures to note errors. In these cases, judges assist and advise the RC. They do not supervise or direct the RC. A good jury will note signals made on the water and their timing and tactfully alert the PRO if something does not comply with the racing rules. The jury chair (or an appointee) should only communicate to the RC through its PRO (or to a person delegated by the PRO). Communication with the PRO, particularly when there are rules or procedural issues, is best done in person rather than over the radio.
When the jury is on the water and all racing is conducted on a single course, the jury will normally operate as a single unit. This permits the jury to work together and make decisions that require input by the full jury to be decided on the spot. When the racing is being conducted on more than one course, there are benefits in splitting the jury to have a presence on each course. When the jury has on-the-water responsibility for enforcing rule 42 (Propulsion), the jury will usually be divided into pairs of judges in separate boats.
In addition to general judging responsibilities, members of the jury may be asked by the chair to assume some specific responsibilities. These duties may include recorder or secretary, observer assigned to a particular area of the racecourse or pilot to direct the operator of the jury boat especially when maneuvering close to competitors.
The operation of the PC at a large or busy regatta can be significantly enhanced with the aid of a competent jury secretary. A good jury secretary is usually an experienced judge or someone with PC experience. Before coming to the event, the jury chair should review the procedures that are regularly used by a jury secretary and bring original copies of checklists, notification forms and blank reports.
The primary responsibility of the jury secretary is to receive and prepare protest forms prior to the hearing, including copying, logging and posting notices. However, a good jury secretary will assume a number of other duties and will create a list in advance for review with the chair. Prior to protest time on the first day, the jury chair and jury secretary should review each item on the checklist that is pertinent to the event.
The jury secretary will distribute the blank protest forms; receive, consecutively number and log the completed forms; make copies of the protests; post the notice of protest hearings; announce the start of a hearing; post the end of protest time; collect and file the protests from completed hearings; and post the hearing results.
The jury secretary can also inform the scorer of any PC decisions that change the scoring, inform them that all protests for a race are concluded and otherwise assist the jury chair in ensuring good and efficient communication and information sharing between the RC and PC.
In addition, the jury secretary normally makes and maintains a packet for each judge containing all the relevant documents for the event, including any amendments to the material. Depending on the workload and the experience of the jury secretary, the chair may assign a judge to assist the secretary in some of the duties assigned.
When the jury will be on the water during racing, it is extremely important for the jury and the RC to have a good working relationship. The jury chair and the PRO should meet to discuss their roles and responsibilities and the best way for the two committees to work together. Unless the OA specifically requests otherwise, the RC is responsible for all race management decisions on the water. The role of the jury on the water is usually to observe the racing and race management procedures with respect to the quality and fairness of the racing. However, the RC and the jury will still interact during the competition. Relations on the water will be most productive if the two committees have met beforehand to establish a good rapport, understand the scope of responsibility and know how to communicate any concerns.
Before racing begins, the jury chair should also meet with the jury secretary and review the procedures for accepting and handling protests. When no secretary is appointed, the chair should assign these responsibilities to a jury member.
See APPENDIX A of this judges manual for a detailed Checklist for Discussion at the First PC Meeting (as well as other useful checklists).
The entire jury should meet before the first race, preferably as soon as possible after all the judges arrive. During this meeting the chair should, at a minimum, cover the following issues:
· Introduce the members, and provide the names and mobile phone numbers of the relevant members of the OA and the RC. When there is no jury secretary, this is the time to allocate the jury secretary duties to one or more jury members.
· Discuss and agree on protest scheduling and hearing procedures.
· Thoroughly review the SIs and the NOR. If the jury believes that changes are necessary, the jury chair should review the issues with the RC. Since the SIs are the responsibilities of the RC, the jury may suggest, but not mandate changes. When there is a good working relationship between the jury chair and the PRO, it will be rare that the jury’s concerns cannot be resolved.
· Review specific judging duties, times of meetings, proper dress, hearings and social functions.
· Review the jury’s role on the water, and if applicable, allocate activities and jury boats.
· Decide on how proactive the jury will be for on-the-water rule compliance and jury protests. In order for the jury to be consistent in its enforcement of the rules, the jury should discuss and agree on the criteria under which they would initiate a protest against a boat on the water.
· Establish the formality, method and procedures for communications with the OA, RC, competitors, coaches and press.
Competitor meetings are not required by the rules, but having one is desirable at most events. The RC conducts this meeting, but as with all briefings, the jury chair, at least, should attend competitor meetings. The US SAILING Race Management Handbook contains instructions on the conduct of competitor meetings. For PC issues, the chair should:
· Introduce the committee members,
· Describe where protests will be heard and where protest forms can be obtained and submitted, and
· When applicable, state that arbitration, open hearings, on-the-water judging or other non-standard judging will be used, and give a brief description of the process.
During a competitor meeting, oral instructions or rule interpretations should never be given. When such a question is asked in a competitor meeting, the chair should ask for the question to be submitted in writing and tell the competitors that the answers to any questions will be posted. When posted on the official notice board, both the competitor’s question and the jury’s answer should be included.
All official communications with competitors should be in writing to avoid the possibility of conflicting instructions and subsequent requests for redress under rule 62 (Redress).
If the OA expects and arranges for the jury to be on the water, the jury’s role may include:
· Responding to questions from the RC.
· Positioning the jury boat(s) to observe fairness of competition and compliance with the rules.
· Judging rule 42 (Propulsion) as provided in rule 67 (Rule 42 and Hearing Requirement) or Appendix P (Immediate Penalties for Breaking Rule 42) (see section 5.5.2).
· Initiating a protest against a competitor as provided by rule 60.3(a).
See Section 8.2 (PC Protests) for a discussion on protests initiated by the jury, and Section 6.8 (Taking Testimony and Gathering Evidence) for PC procedures when a PC member is a witness in a hearing.
The remainder of this section discusses two different aspects of on-the-water activities:
· General on-the-water observation, but not direct judge enforcement of Rule 42 (Propulsion).
· Rule 42 enforcement by judges
If the jury has been directed by the OA to be present on the water the jury should be prepared to initiate a protest against a competitor. They should also be alert as possible witnesses on protests between boats. The extent of rule enforcement expected by the OA must be determined prior to going on the water and clearly communicated to the jury. A jury member who observes an incident on the water and intends to initiate a protest under rule 60.3(a) should avoid discussing the incident with any other member of the jury.
The jury boat should be placed so the jury can observe areas where incidents are most likely to occur. These areas include starts, mark roundings, clusters of tacking boats, legs with potential for boats to use kinetics and the finish. Judges should make notes on boats that do penalty turns (and the number of tacks and gybes in those turns), and make note (where relevant) of protest flags and hails. The jury boat should avoid creating a wake or blocking the wind for boats racing. Good jury boat positioning helps ensure that the jury can be effective in observing the fleet. Being close to the boats is helpful for observing incidents, but when the jury is just observing (and not enforcing on-water propulsion), err on the side of caution to avoid interfering with the racing boats.
During the pre-start, the jury boat(s) will generally position below the line as shown in Figure 5.1, favoring the starboard end of the line. If the starting boats cluster, gravitate towards the cluster, but strive to remain in line with the stern of the starboard tack boats, giving a good position to observe tacking and windward/leeward incidents. The right hand most boat will also watch for barging at the start.
Figure 5.1. Jury boat position at the start
Working up the beat, stay below the fleet and watch for converging port-starboard situations as shown in Figure 5.2. If there are two or more boats, spread left to right across the course. One jury boat should be designated to stay with leaders and observe the weather mark rounding. At the weather mark, the most common incidents involve tacking too close, luffing sharply, or tacking inside the zone.
Figure 5.2. Jury boat position on the beat.
Positioning to the right (looking upwind) of the mark as shown in Figure 5.3 allows you to observe both the zone, and the boats approaching on port tack.
Figure 5.3. Jury boat position at the weather mark.
At the leeward mark, witnessing overlaps at the zone is often key. A good position for this is below the port-tack layline at the zone as shown in Figure 5.4. Be alert that when a cluster of boats approaches the mark at the same time, some boats may track well below the layline. Similarly at a gybe mark, the best position to confirm overlaps is by being above the mark to observe boats as they approach the zone.
Figure 5.4. Jury boat positioning at the leeward mark.
A voice recorder and a note pad are very useful to record the details of incidents witnessed on the course. When using a tape recorder, two approaches can be effective. The most common is to observe the action and then, just after an incident that might lead to a protest has been observed, use the recorder to quickly record the relevant details about the incident such as the boats involved, distances between them, position of the jury boat. The second approach is a process that umpires use to describe on-water situations. As a judge, you will “role play” a specific boat. As boats converge (even before a incident occurs), you speak into the recorder as if you were aboard the sailboat, you describe the rights, reasons, obligations and opportunities for that boat and then update the description as the situation unfolds. Most incidents so discussed will not lead to protests, but if they do, you will have already recorded a live description of the incident as it developed. You can then add to the description the supplemental information above. The ISAF Umpires Manual (available for downloading at www.sailing.org, following link for Race Official training) has a good description of this role-playing technique.
Good radio communications are also necessary between the jury and RC on the water. Keep in mind, however, that nothing should be said over the radio that could not be printed in the newspaper. Discrete conversations are best conducted face-to-face aboard the same boat, or via cell phone.
Self-policing is a basic tenet of sailboat racing. If there is a dispute and a protest is made, then a judicial-style hearing is held after the race. However, when it came to kinetics, the self-policing system failed because it was difficult for a protestor to bring sufficient evidence to convince a jury that a breach of rule 42 had occurred. Over time, such situations led to a need for officials to be on the racecourse to enforce such racing rules. With competent on-the-water judging, a high level of compliance with rule 42 can be attained, providing fairer competition for the sailors.
The RRS includes rule 67 (Rule 42 and Hearing Requirement) and Appendix P (Immediate Penalties for Breaking Rule 42) that allow on-the-water PCs to penalize boats breaking rule 42 without a hearing. Using either rule requires them to be invoked in the sailing instructions. For a variety of reasons (including severity of penalties in rule 67), use of Appendix P is much more common than the use of rule 67.
Until 2005, national prescriptions and Sailing Instructions could modify rule 42. Currently, only class rules may change this rule. Several classes do have changes to rule 42, but in manners that vary widely and sometimes define the conditions under which planing and surfing conditions exist.
The Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) has created a collegiate class of boat and acts as a class association, allowing them to change rule 42 in their Procedural Rules. Judges involved with these events should review these Procedural Rules before undertaking any on-the-water activities and especially making any rule 42 calls (see www.collegesailing.org). Rule 42 is also modified by some of the RRS appendices[1].
Issues relating to rule 42 (Propulsion) have occurred when sailors misunderstood the rule and judges applied different tests and levels in protesting boats. Earlier versions of this manual provided some discussion of on-the-water rule 42 judging approaches. In recent years, ISAF has worked proactively to improve the worldwide consistency of rule 42 enforcement. ISAF's website (www.sailing.org) has several publications and training information available in the Race Officials section under Race Officers Development (Post-Certification Training).
ISAF has issued a number of interpretations of rule 42 to clarify the rule and to establish consistency in its enforcement[2]. The ISAF rule 42 Interpretations have the same status as ISAF Cases and the ISAF Match and Team Racing Calls. They all rank as authoritative interpretations of the RRS. They are all available for downloading from ISAF’s website. ISAF has also developed a video demonstration clearly identifying permitted and prohibited actions, which is available on a CD from ISAF.
Chapter 7 of the ISAF’s International Judges Manual (On-The-Water Operations including Rule 42 and Appendix P) has been updated to reflect these rule 42 interpretations. ISAF Chapter 7 also provides an excellent discussion on rule 42 enforcement, judge boat positioning, equipment, and other pertinent information.
The US SAILING Judges Committee believes that this information reflects good practice and is applicable to on-the-water rule 42 events in the US. APPENDIX B of this US SAILING Judges Manual provides a copy of this ISAF Chapter[3].
After the race, the PC must decide protests and requests for redress. The proper conduct of a hearing is explained in Appendix M (Recommendations for Protest Committees) and Chapter 6 of this Judges Manual (Conduct of a Protest Hearing). This section describes the processes for receiving and scheduling protests.
The SIs should specify where protests are to be delivered. Whoever receives the protests must be instructed not to reject any protest or request for redress, whatever form it takes, or whether or not it is received within the protest time limit. It is for the PC to decide whether a protest or request for redress is valid, not the person or judge receiving the protest or request.
The time of receipt and initials of the person receiving the protest or request for redress should be written on the protest or request form. Sequential numbering of each protest or request for redress in the order received is important for tracking the protests and managing the hearings and the efficient disposition of the protests. Copies should be made for each party to the hearing and each member of the PC.
Immediately after a protest is received, the jury secretary must assemble any additional information that the PC will need to know about the protest when it comes before them. This might include, for example, information about penalties taken by any boat involved in the incident.
Sometimes a protest is received and subsequently the protestor wants to withdraw the protest. Once a protest is delivered, it must be heard (rule 63.1) unless the PC agrees to a protestor’s request to withdraw the protest. See Section 6.4 (Withdrawing a Protest) for further discussion on withdrawing a protest.
The PC often requests that the RC give an action report to the PC at the end of each day of racing. At a minimum, the report should contain a listing of boats observed flying protest flags at the finish. The report may also contain:
· A listing of boats observed flying alternative penalty flags at the finish.
· A record of reported protests, including the names/numbers of the protesting and protested boats.
· A record of reported penalty declarations.
· A listing of boats retiring.
· A listing of boats scored OCS, DNF, ZPG and BFD.
· The time the last boat finished in each race.
· Any RC action that initiates the beginning of the protest period.
In cases of redress, the PC may request copies of any mark rounding records and other log information that a RC records.
If the SIs require that protests be brought to the attention of the RC when finishing, the report from the RC should be used to verify compliance and the appropriate notation made on the protest.
APPENDIX C of this judges manual contains sample forms to help track this information. These forms are also available electronically on the US SAILING Judges Committee website (www.ussailing.org/judges).
The order of hearings and their estimated starting times should be posted as soon as possible. When there are protests from different boats about the same incident, as Case 49 states, a PC should schedule the protests to be heard at one hearing.
Since protests are received individually and it is not always clear before a hearing which protests involve the same incident, each protest is given a unique sequential number. Two or more protest folders or envelopes will include all the paperwork for a single hearing. If the PC decides that the protests do not apply to a single incident, the separate protest folders allow the protests to be heard separately.
In a larger event, the jury desk can easily get backlogged. It can be helpful for the jury secretary to be supported by one or more members of the jury. Once the secretary does the initial logging of the protest, another judge can review the protest to see if it relates to other filed protests, or assist in copying the protests. When arbitration is being used, the judge can also separate the protests eligible for arbitration from those that are not. The goal is to keep the protest logs flowing smoothly, while striving to get protest hearings started as soon as feasible.
In general, hearings should be scheduled in the order that the protest forms were received. However, those requiring RC evidence are frequently heard consecutively, and as soon as reasonably possible. The RC should be informed promptly of any requests for redress so it has as much time as possible to investigate the matter.
Posting interim hearing schedules can be useful for getting protest hearings started. The jury secretary maintains the master list of scheduled hearings and periodically makes a copy of the schedule while protests are still being received.
The secretary notes on the copy of the schedule, that the list is not final and then posts the copy of the schedule on the notice board. The jury secretary should include on the schedule the time he or she posts these interim (as well as final) documents. The secretary then continues to update the master schedule at the jury desk. This preliminary posting can be repeated throughout the filing period. The final copy of the schedule to be posted should state that no additional hearings will be scheduled that day.
When the PC is ready to begin, a copy of the protest or request for redress should be given to each committee member. When the PC is ready to proceed, the parties are called. The jury secretary should ensure that:
· The protest notice has been posted properly.
· There is a representative from each boat standing by.
· Any witnesses are available and waiting.
· Any witnesses are excluded from overhearing the proceedings (as explained in Appeal 62).
· On completion of the hearing(s), the jury secretary should:
· Post a record of protest hearing decision(s) on the official notice board.
· Notify the scorer of any scoring decisions as a result of the hearing(s).
The jury secretary should promptly inform the chair if there are any written requests from competitors.
Photo 5.1. On-the-Water Judging of Rule 42 at an Optimist event.
[1] The windsurfing (Appendix B, rule B2.1(a)) and match racing (Appendix C, rules C2.10 and C2.11) appendices both change rule 42, while the match racing and team racing (Appendix D) appendices also specify different penalties and protest processes.
[2] ISAF last revised their rule 42 interpretations in January, 2005.
[3] For those interested, the entire ISAF judges manual is available for downloading from the ISAF website.
