Page 93 - Judge Manual 2017

that someone is lying. It may reflect different perspectives or feelings at the time
of or after the incident. When all the evidence is reviewed and a distance is
determined, that distance will become a “fact” the decision is based upon, even
if that distance is neither one meter nor three meters.
Allow witnesses to show the incident with model boats from their own angle. Do
not set the wind direction for them, because this requires them to mentally
rotate the incident to a new angle if they saw it at a different angle. Not all
people are good at mental rotation, and this could interfere with their recall of
the incident.

Assign colors of boat models to the boats involved in the protest and keep the
colors consistent through all presentations in the hearing. This will assist the
parties and judges in understanding the demonstrations of the incident. This
will be especially helpful to any judge who might have difficulty in seeing the
incident from different angles if one presentation has the wind blowing at the
presenter, and another has the wind blowing away from the presenter. The
ability to mentally rotate the event in space is not related to the person’s ability
to perform as a judge.
One way to determine whether something is a fact or not is to use the “home
video rule—if the action can be seen in a video, it is fact.” “Boat A altered her
course when she was one boat length away” is a fact. “Boat B intended to luff,”
is not a fact. “Boat D was half a meter to windward of Boat C”,” or, “the boats
were more than eight meters apart,” are facts.

Listen carefully to the evidence, be aware of the parties’ body language, take
notes and, most important, establish facts. A recommended way of doing this
is to establish:
• what rules might apply to the incident;
• what are the boats’ obligations under those rules: to keep clear or to give
room or mark room?
• write facts that determine whether the boats met those obligations.

K.20 Resolving Controversial Issues

When all but one member is in general agreement, the dissenter should be
given an opportunity to state his point of view, and try to persuade the other
members. Only after having been given an opportunity to persuade the others,
should his opinion be overruled.
Try to obtain agreement among the protest committee. Establish the most likely
scenario by returning to the last point of certainty, assess the weight of the
conflicting evidence, and, if necessary, recall the parties to obtain any missing
information or further clarification. Once any differences of opinions among the
protest committee members have been resolved, use the procedure in the
previous paragraph. A vote can be useful especially after a reasonable time
has been allowed for discussion and a variety of views persist.
The chairman has a casting vote (that is, when there is an even number of votes
either way including the chairman's vote, then the chairman has an extra vote).
When a casting vote is required to decide a case, it is usually worth spending
some more time discussing the case.