Page 21 - Kwasind Nov-Dec 2019

was not able to do so. The Hong Kong spinnaker pole, which a few feet is always protruding beyond the bow, went through our port lifelines into the cockpit, cutting in two the lower lifeline and bending the two most aft stanchions on the port side, all as the starting gun sounded. I then politely asked one of our crew members to kindly remove the Hong Kong sprit from our boat. When that was accomplished, we could not lay the starting pin, so we had to bear away, pick up speed and tack to port in order to cross the starting line. Despite the damage and the fact that we had no port lower lifeline to hike on, if that had been the end of the incident, I am very sure that we would have still won the race given our speed in those conditions.
But no such luck. As we sailed away from the starting line on port tack, already well behind the rest of the fleet, much to our surprise the on-the-water umpire signaled to us that we had to do a two-turn penalty. Doing two turns in 18-20 knots of wind and big waves was not easy and the circles were much larger than we would have preferred. By the time we finished going in circles we were hundreds and hundreds of metres behind the leaders. I was not happy with the umpire decision as we were completely in the right and were the victim of a port tack bow sprit, but we dug in our heels and started chasing down boats. Once again, we were going very well both upwind and downwind, though not with the clear air that we had in the previous race. We came all the way back to 5th place in the race, about a boat length from 4th we had flown our protest flag throughout the race thinking that we would apply for redress, but the 5th place finish was better than our average of the previous 5 races, that might have been what we would have been granted, so we took down the flag.
Was it over then? No such luck. The umpire then protested us under Rule 14 Avoiding Contact. He had somehow come to the conclusion that we had caused the collisions between Argentina and Hong
Kong and then between ourselves and Hong Kong. That is why he made us do the penalty turns and then go to a hearing for potential further punishment and responsibility to pay for the damage. Later that day, the skippers of Canada, Argentina and Hong Kong along with the umpire appeared in front of the international jury. Both Hong Kong and Argentina said that we had nothing to do in causing the collisions. For some reason, the umpire blamed it all on us. His partner in the umpire boat was even more out to lunch, saying that we hit the Argentines and pushed them into Hong Kong. I have a hard time keeping my cool at the best of times, so it was a big test for me. Luckily, the jury allowed us to bring in the YouTube footage of the incident. After they watched that they concluded that both Hong Kong and Argentina would be disqualified from the race and that RCYC was exonerated. That meant that we got out of paying for damages, but nothing could undo the pole in our cockpit and the two circles we were erroneously made to do.
If you want to watch the incident on YouTube see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ShEM_3rleo and tune in at about 2:05:40. We enter the picture from the right on port tack 40 secs prior to the gun with Argentina trailing us. We both luff up on port before tacking onto starboard. Hong Kong comes in on starboard below Argentina. Read it and weep.
Anyhow, it was a great experience for us sailors and for all of those RCYC members that came to Newport. None of it would have been possible without the generous support of you all. I don’t feel completely comfortable fundraising at my age, but as I tell people, I am just a good enough sailor to qualify for some events that I cannot afford on my own.
I think your Club and country were well represented by the eight sailors and I thank you again for allowing us to be those representatives.
SAILING