APPENDIX M

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROTEST COMMITTEES. With Further Advisory Notes from the RYA Racing Rules Committee
Excerpt:
When it is possible that a party may not know a member of the protest committee, introduce and name the protest committee members (including yourself) when asking for objections. At regattas with many hearings before the same protest committee, type the name of each member in 24 pt across the middle of a piece of paper and fold and tape it into a ‘toblerone’ shape to put as a name-plate in front of each protest committee member. It will speed the introductions. If a protest committee member is a Regional, National or International Judge, you might add the initials RJ, NJ or IJ to the name. While only the parties are entitled to be present, it is good policy to agree to requests from others to observe, on the understanding that they can say nothing, that they sit behind (and so out of eye contact with) the parties, and that they cannot then be called as witnesses. When a protest involves children, the presence of a parent as observer is desirable, if only so that the parent can appreciate that the procedure was correct and any penalty was appropriate on the facts found.

This piece goes trough Appendix M with commentary from the RYA Racing Rules Committee.
Very usefull information. You can find the complete piece under FILES.

E-mail test

This is a test message send from E-mail directly to my blog to see if it’s published and how. I’ll even attach a small picture to see if it’s picked up.
If this works I’ll be able to send from anywhere, even from my phone!

AC 33

If you want to read the court decision about the 33th AC, have look at: www.ggyc.org/071127_CourtDecision.pdf
The entire decision from the Judge is online at the Golden Gate Yacht Club site.
I keep thinking, any International Jury panel would have done it in a lot less time and with a 10th of the fuss and paperwork, to decide what: "having for its annual regatta on the sea or arm of the sea" means.. But what do I know.....

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MONSOON CUP

Today - November 28th - the world match tour final match race event is starting in Pulau Duyong, Terengganu, Malaysia. This event will decide the winner for 2007. They have a nice website for the MONSOON CUP.

It’s only a pity the information on the rules, how match racing is done and the video's are a couple of years out of date. I've spotted several crucial mistakes... Hopefully the event umpires are better up to speed. Have a look at the videos and see if you can find what is wrong with them.

FORMS / FORMULIEREN

I've added a new list to the blog site where I'll store the different forms in use for protest work.
First of course the "standard" protest forms you can print. Please remember that - unless it's specifically written into the SI - any paper handed in to the protest-desk is to be considered a protest, as long as it complies with RRS 61.2. Validity is never determined by the person sitting at that desk, always by the protest committee/jury. Even papers handed in hours after end of protest time, should not be refused, there might be a valid reason why the form was handed in so late. Also, once a form is handed in, a party cannot withdraw a protest, without the permission of the committee.

Een nieuwe lijst op de blog site. Daar komen de verschillende formulieren die in gebruik zijn voor protest werk.
Als eerste een standaard protestformulier voor afdrukken. Onthoud echter dat elk als zodanig beschreven papier - tenzij specifiek omschreven in de wedstrijdbepalingen - als een protest moet worden aangenomen, zo lang het voldoet aan de voorwaarden uit RvW 61.2. Geldigheid mag nooit bepaald worden door de persoon die het protest aanneemt, altijd door het protest comité/jury. Zelfs wanneer het formulier uren na het einde van de protesttijd wordt ingeleverd, mag het niet worden geweigerd. Er kan een geldige reden zijn waarom het zo laat werd ingeleverd. Ook, wanneer een formulier is ingeleverd, mag een partij het niet terugtrekken, zonder toestemming van het protest comité/jury.

RULES QUIZ (2)

Interactive and in 3 levels of difficulty. Most of you will have found this site by now.
For all new sailors and judges, you can study the rules by answering Uli Finckh's Rulesquiz

TRUTH IN THE PROTESTROOM (2)

At our annual sailing event in 2007 we had a very strange protest - a sailor came up to me on the fourth day claiming he was not aware that he had been involved in a protest and could I tell him why he was given a DSQ. This on itself is not very strange, as many protest are done under rule 63.3(b) After studying the papers I told him what the committee had found as fact and their decision. The sailor was very surprised because he wasn't involved in the hearing. On the protest form however his boat was represented by such and so. How was this possible?
After I asked the panel chairman to join us, we quickly came to the conclusion that someone else had pretended to represent his boat. Further investigation revealed that this person wasn't even a competitor but a total bystander. There was even a witness claiming to have sailed on the same boat!
After a lot of discussion in the jury morning meeting, we decided to
ask around if we could find the culprits. No luck.
We investigated the rest of the week without success.

What do you think?
If the presence of the true representative was not unavoidable and
there was no reason to reopen on those grounds, do you think the panel should?
Or should the committee find that they may have made a mistake (RRS 66) and reopen the protest on those grounds?

Give me your opinion. We asked our national Appeal Board for the answers. I'll publish them in a couple of days.

Continued in this post

SHIP SHAPE AND BRISTOL FASHION

The Port Of Bristol was once famous for importing tobacco, sherry, chocolate and .....slaves. Slave ships smelled and could bring disease. They were not allowed into port until they were cleaned and made tidy (tides are predictable and ordered). Before entering Bristol, slave ships were rigorously inspected so as to be ship shape and Bristol fashion. Even once tied up at the quay, sailors would not be allowed ashore until the vessel had slewed her yards, swinging them inboard so as not to obstruct passing ships and quayside buildings. No cock up crew was allowed ashore until each had cleared his yardarm to a neatly braced order.

In Portsmouth, floozies would come aboard naval vessels to aid ship morale. Shore leave was often forbidden for fear that pressed men (landlubbers who were forced into service by press gangs) would desert. Each morning the petty officer would shout for the occupants of hammocks to show a leg. If the leg was smooth and shapely, the lady was allowed to sleep in; if the leg was hairy, the officer turned out the hammock for the sailor to swab the deck. Hammocks were not really suited to the activities of these ladies and most preferred to work in the spaces between the guns. The gun decks also offered convenient spaces (with suitable rings) for child-birth. Children born on the gun decks could never be certain of their father and were entered in the Deck Log as son of a gun. The gun deck and the four deck rings for each canon were also useful for tying men to be flogged over a barrel. Sailors referred to this predicament as being married to the gunner's daughter, from which there was no respite.

The text above is from a piece I found somewhere on the www when I started studying for international exams.
Not only does it explain what things mean, but it gives you also some insight in where a particular word originated from. (see under FILES: Glossary of Sailing Terms)

Other sites with explanations and glossary:
http://www.sailinglinks.com/glossary.htm
http://terrax.org/index.aspx
http://www.sailingahead.com/information/glossary.htm

TEMPLATE

When I started out as a draftsman - I work at an architectural firm - we used to draw on boards with big rulers with pencils and rötring pens. You know, those wriggly building plans. On that board we also used a lot of templates for lettering and fixed symbols. I had a bag full of those in my cabinet.
Nowadays we draw only on the computer. Chasing a pointer on a 22 inch screen all day long. In the picture you'll find a credit card sized template for drawing protest diagrams. Complete with different sizes of boats, wind- and current direction arrow, marks and scales for circles. This one I haven't used yet, as I just bought it, but am eager to try out. Perhaps I'm a bit nostalgic?

Update: You can buy this template from John Doerr (download a page with his Retail Items here)
Update: 2011/02/25 No longer available (Link removed)

HOLLAND REGATTA NIEUWSBRIEF

Kreeg vandaag in de mijn mailbox de eerste "Holland" Regatta Nieuwsbrief.
Blijkt dat Breitling al na één jaar afscheid heeft genomen van het evenement. Ben benieuwd hoe de Regatta volgend jaar gaat heten.... Oh, in 2008 is het evenement vanaf woensdag 21 tot en zondag 25 mei.