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Role of the protest committee
15 Action by the protest committee acting under its ‘own observation’
15.1 Rule 69.2(a) allows a protest committee to call a rule 69 hearing without a
report being filed if the protest committee believes that a breach of rule
69.1(a) may have been committed based on its own observations.
15.2 This observation can include information acquired during a normal protest or
redress hearing (whether or not the protest/request is valid) or anything seen
or heard by members of the protest committee ashore or afloat.
15.3 It is recommended that the conduct observed is written down and submitted
to the full protest committee for consideration.
16 Consideration of a report
16.1 Once the report has been lodged, the protest committee must consider
whether or not to act on it.
16.2 ISAF and RYA policy is that it is essential to the healthy development of the
sport that appropriate penalties be imposed on competitors guilty of gross
misconduct (i.e. gross breach of a rule or of good manners or sportsmanship,
or who have brought the sport into disrepute).
16.3 In addition, rule P2.3 requires the protest committee to consider calling a rule
69 hearing when a boat fails to retire after a third ‘yellow flag’ penalty under
rule 42. It is also an option in the event of a gross breach of the ISAF
Advertising Code.
16.4 However, neither a hearing under rule 69 nor a protest under rule 2 (see
below) may be the best way to deal with every problem, particularly for:
16.4.1 non-malicious excess aggression arising from youth or inexperience of
the sport (see Appendix K); or
16.4.2 an isolated instance of knowingly having broken a rule without intent
to do so, but not then taking a penalty.
16.5 A protest committee can ask a competitor to appear before it, to make it clear
to the competitor that his/her unacceptable behaviour, noting the Basic
Principle, Sportsmanship and the Rules and rule 2, Fair Sailing. This is not a
hearing under rule 69.1, even though the effect may be to give an informal
warning as to future conduct that, if repeated, might give rise to a hearing
under rule 69. For youth and juniors, see Appendix K.
17 Interaction between rule 2 and rule 69
The protest committee must be aware of the interaction between rule 2 and rule 69.
For detailed guidance on this topic please see Appendix F.
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