Wow!

Standards for protest hearings TOSSED OUT

The Farrah Hall fiasco was just one of the worst moments of the last trials and apparently the solution is to change the rules as ordered by the US courts.

How many protest hearings for cat sailors do we have a year?

How about this one.

3. Protest committees must permit every competitor the opportunity to participate as a party in every redress hearing;

4) Protest committees must permit competitors to present testimony in ways currently prohibited by the Racing Rules of Sailing.

What's that all about. Video?

I don't see anything in the press release about this being heard in U.S. courts. It's just a hearing panel that was appointed by the USOC.

If the IOC doesn't have a problem with the ISAF rules, it sounds to me like the USOC is the one that is out of sync here and needs to change something in its bylaws.

And objectivity is rather suspect when the USOC appoints the panel to review USOC's own rules.

Have there actually been court trials regarding sailing protests? Do you have links to them?

Aside - You can already use video if it is relevant and you have it. I seem to recall that there are even guidelines for using video evidence in a protest, ie. distortion and perspective issues with its use.

Redress is a minefield which needs to be sorted out.

That's for sure!!

This all stemmed from one of the women's windsurfing championships in the US where one of the 1st or 2nd place women was hit on the start line just before the last race. She stayed on her board but later claimed that a tear in her sail caused her to finish poorly. The woman that won that race and claimed (a short lived) victory for taking the US Olympic seat was informed, while taking her shower, that a file for redress had been heard which put her 2nd giving the the win and the berth to the woman that was hit on the start line.

Later, there was a lot of evidence provided that questioned the validity of the redress claim - the tear in the sail wasn't nearly as large as the fact found, photographic evidence seemed to show that the lost time claimed wasn't factual, etc.

The debate is that her career was significantly affected by a hearing to which she wasn't allowed to be a party. at the '05 NAF18 NA's (yes, I'm still sore) an entire race was thrown out in a closed hearing where only those lodging the complaint were allowed. It really had a big affect on the outcome of the event for EVERYONE (would have kept us in the overall top 10) and I really felt that it was strange that such an important decision that affected everyone was closed to all but those who stood to gain.

As far as having athletes on the jury, I have mixed emotions. It does add some expertise but it will most certainly be problematic to fulfill that obligation - though we have had some good ones and managed to pull it off, finding a qualified jury is tough ... now we have to find a sailor that's registered as an athlete, not competing in the event, and interested in giving up a week of sailing time to sit around most of the week waiting for something to happen (since jury's are so bored during that week anyway )

I'm with Jake. "Wind Gate" was a joke. Open redress hearings. I'm not sure that I agree with Capron that it would automatically be harder to seat a protest committee. I can't think of a protest committee we've had that didn't have at least one "real" sailor sitting on it. For a committee of three or four, that meets the USOC recommendation. I'd hope that USSA wouldn't automatically fight this if it seems like the right thing to do - perhaps that energy would be better spent making ISAF to consider adopting the recommendations, too, if they make things more fair for everyone.

I don't understand redress in the first place. In all my life of racing, I had never even heard of redress until we started sailing in some Hobie Nationals that had supplied boats. And then you could only ask for redress if there was an equipment failure that was the fault of the manufacturer.

Nowadays, it seems like people are asking for redress for all kinds of things. A rip in your sail? You collided with another boat? I'd say "tough luck." How about,"I had stomach flu, so I couldn't sail my best race."

It's just not FAIR!

What do y'all think about redress in cases where a racer offers assistance to another racer, especially in a distance race?

Redress does have its place.

What everyone needs to understand is that protests and requests for redress at Olympic trials are notorious for going this way. The "loser" will typically not stop until all avenues are exhausted, and this includes post-event arbitration, lots of lawyers, etc.

They literally see this as an acceptable part of the game, otherwise, why would there be rules governing this?

What I'm not seeing is how what USOC is presenting will ever make that aspect go away.

Mike

NASCAR

I think it encourages good sportsmanship.Unfortunately, their are some folks out there that would turn a blind eye to a fellow competitor in trouble, rather than loose time to possibly save a life.I have been on the giving and receiving end of this.Whoever you end up helping has a pretty good idea of how much time you lost,as well as you should start kepping time from when you deviate from your proper course.For me this pertains to distance racing where a chase boat is not at hand,but if you have limited resources(lack of safety boats) on a course should apply anywhere.
Todd

Tami,

I believe that specific situation is covered in USSA judge seminars. It is typically expected that if possible, the "assistor" keep reasonable track of how much time/distance was required to render assistance. This is the best way to file for redress, because it shows that you just want what is fair, and you are making the jury's job easy by providing a solution.

Having said that, I have seen multiple cases at Hobie NAs where the RC (PU) filed for redress for individual boats that we witnessed stop racing to pull people out of the water, etc. We tend to be as generous as possible without affecting tropy positions (unless that is warranted by the performace of the assistor). EDIT: Meaning, if they were clearly in first place and stopped racing to help a boat, it might be reasonable to award them a finish posistion of first place.

Mike

Obviously, in distance races sailors should be given redress when they stop to assist. And I would think in all distance races the sailors would be REQUIRED to stop and offer or provide help. If someone does NOT stop, they should actually be given "undress" (new sailing word?)

I'm not against redress - I think it is important for competitors to be able to make a case that their finish position was made worse through no fault of their own. I have a problem with the other interested parties (sometimes the whole fleet) not being included in the discussion. Open hearings - I think it would tend to help people decide if they will file the redress if they know that they have to stand in front of the whole fleet to make the case. Some chicken$hit stuff would likely not be filed - saves time and aggravation.

Here we go again...



Just because they have mark boats on the course... IT DOES NOT CHANGE YOUR OBLIGATION TO OFFER ASSISTANCE! It does not matter if it's a buoy race or a distance race. The rules you agreed to make it a requirement to offer assistance.

Obviously, people think that the mark boats... are actually safety boats and now they don't have to stop racing because the OA and PRO will take care of it. I have been ranting about this for a while!

Mary's point that undress be applied actually can be applied now if you sail by a crash and don't offer assistance. Mike noted that PU would file for redress for a boat who DID render assistance but did not file. He just as well could have filed to penalize a boat for NOT rendering assistance. (I don't know if he has ever had occasion to do that).

This common sense rule of offer assistance is a big factor in getting monohull distance races to offer a start to a beach cats. The unlucky monohull does not want to stop and render assistance to the lucky beach cat. He will either have to abandon his race or be forced to file for a large amount of redress. They are not signing up to be crash boats for catamarans and so they can reasonably say... Nah... go run your own distance race it won't be fun for us to be your crash boats. (it's a tough one)

I will climb back on my soap box. All of the safety BS that OA's try to extend to the race course (Safety Boats,Crash boats, Rescue boats, tow boats etc etc) serve to mitigate the sailors 100% responsibility for their safety (sail or not sail) and their responsibility to others on the course (sail over to offer assistance or not)!

If you think you have less then 100% responsibility, you might enter a distance race, crash and sort of count on somebody bailing you out just like the buoy race with safety boats. Not good!

Well said John. I think Capron is really blowing smoke on this. From where I stand I don't see this making protest hearings any harder. On the few times they occur at our regional events we typically co-opt sailors from another class who don't have a dog in the fight to sit on the committee.

This whole case leaves a bad taste in my mouth, USSA have blown a chunk of change fighting this case. I'm looking forward to them accepting this ruling and coming out with some sensible reforms to protest hearings (especially redress).

Chris.

John, How do you think this is going to work. Now your protest committee will need a certified judge PLUS two other individuals who are not racing the event (and agree to serve, one of them a class A, B or C sailor). Would you take that responsibility and give up a week or weekend of life? This is a hell of a burden...

With respect to redress... John, it seems that you think the PC did not take into account the point of view of the other competitors.

Do you have any evidence for this?

Now, you want a chance to stand up and argue for what you see is the disparate impact of the redress award given to sailor X.
Seems to me that since it's a self policing sport and you have to trust both the competitor and the PC. You have to believe that PC will act fairly, The request for redress is just that a request... not an argument to be balanced against a counter argument offered by yourself.

Don't you think a hearing with everyone demanding they be heard will just force the PC to publicly play Solomon and decide how to cut the baby... Who will take that volunteer job?

Damnit! I'm with Mark on this one, I hate it when that happens.

Dave, you're only with Mark because you got stuck in a protracted thing where one of the parties should have known better and refused to withdraw. Instead, the other one did after it became obvious the situation sucked. Imagine (Lennon, anyone?) if the Corinthian was back in racing.

Mark - I think the claim that the small tear in the sail cost a position-per-inch was absurd and would have been laughed at out loud if there had been other board sailors "in the room" when evidence was given. I also think that the "proof" there wasn't five knots at the second the race started at Hampton Beach would have been laughed at. In both cases, one side got to have a closed hearing wherein their testimony led to a "fact found." Once the fact-found is done, the other side gets a chance to reopen the hearing, but the see-saw is waaaay tilted to the previous "facts." Those facts weren't challenged before they were established, but should have been. USOC's recommendation is to short-circuit the absurd appeals process by getting interested parties in the room for the first inning - that, IMO, makes it much more likely that better "facts" are found and that the process will take less time. I also think that, since we pretty much all know each other, some of the things said in the closed hearings would be self-censored.

I was awarded redress at the 03 16 Nationals in Rehobeth after three boats flipped near me. I stopped and waited until all were OK and followed them to the beach. It was blowing around 30 and I really wanted to go in anyway. The RC was told I stopped to help and offered me redress. I told them I really didn't do anything and they said they would still give me a finish. I wasn't going to say no.