Page 102 - Misconduct a Reference for Race Officials

However, a boat’s eventual finishing position in a race may be changed by:

(a) a decision of the race committee to score a boat OCS, ZFP, UFD, BFD, SCP, RET or
DNF; or
(b) a decision of the protest committee in a protest or redress hearing (rule A5).

Note that the race committee must give a finishing place to every boat that starts and
finishes as defined. If they believe that a boat has not correctly sailed the course they must
protest her under rule 28. Only a protest committee can score a boat DSQ, DNE, RDG or
DPI except under rule 78.2 which requires the race committee to DSQ a boat.

When a boat is disqualified or retires after finishing, each boat finishing behind her is moved
up one place. Where a boat is given redress which adjusts her score, the position of other
boats does not change unless the protest committee directs to the contrary (rule A6).

Race Scoring

a) Place Points

The Low Points System of Appendix A gives each boat starting and finishing and not
thereafter retiring or being penalised or given redress, a score of the number of points
corresponding to her finishing position (i.e. first – 1 point, second – 2 points, etc.) (rule A4.1).
If two (or more) boats are tied in a race, because they could not be separated on the finish
line or their corrected times are identical, the points for the tied position and the one(s) after
it are added together and each boat receives an equal share of the total (rule A7). The rule
also specifies that if there is a race prize for the tied position the boats shall share it or be
awarded equal prizes.

When there is a large entry for an event and each race is sailed in flights or groups and the
results combined, there will, initially, be at least two boats with the same race score for each
place. These do not rank as ties to be broken.

b) Redress Points

If a boat is granted redress by the protest committee by adjusting her score for a race, the
adjustment may be in various forms. Rule A10 gives three possible ways of making such an
adjustment:

(a) Points equal to the average, to the nearest tenth of a point (0.05 to be rounded upward)
of her points in all the races in the series except the race concerned;
(b) Points equal to the average, to the nearest tenth of a point (0.05 to be rounded upward)
of her points in all the races before the race concerned; or
(c) Points based on the boat’s position in the race at the time of the incident that justified
redress.

Race committees should check that their chosen scoring system implements A10(a) and
A10(b) correctly by including all races, including subsequently discarded race(s), in the
averaging calculation. The same worst score(s) will be excluded after it/they have been used
to find the average. Some older programs do not do this, which is over-generous in the
redress it gives.

However, these forms of adjustment are advisory only and a protest committee may vary
them or give redress in any other form it so decides.

Any redress score should be annotated RDG in the results.

December 2017 100