Changes to Volvo leaderboard as Int Jury issues penalties in Lisbon

by Richard Gladwell & Rob Kothe Sail-World.com on 3 Jun 2015 The ISAF-appointed independent international jury has heard four cases during the Lisbon stopover after alleged breaches of sailing rules during Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Team SCA had to answer two cases: that they sailed against the traffic flow in a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), and, additionally, into a Rhode Island Sound exclusion zone. The jury penalised them a point for each infringement.

Dongfeng Race Team and Mapfre are also faced protests that they sailed against the traffic flow in a TSS. The jury penalised them each a point for their respective infringement.

The Race Committee had brought all the cases to the jury, If a penalty was to be given, the jury had discretion on what it will be. These rulings were similar to those in past cases where the penalty for a breach of an Exclusion Zone has been the deduction of a point for the Leg (ie a place).

All three teams admitted their infringements in the hearing, but said in mitigation that there had been confusion over how clearly the TSS zones had been marked and the angle the boats were allowed to sail within them.

“This gave us no advantage, it was an honest mistake,” Team SCA skipper, Sam Davies, told the jury.

“There was no shipping in the vicinity at the time, so no safety issue.”

The jury was earlier given evidence from Race Director, Jack Lloyd, who said that the offences took place early in the 2,800-nautical mile (nm) leg from Newport, Rhode Island, to Lisbon, which started on May 17.

The infringements were spotted by Race Control staff and corroborated by diagrams of sailing movements sent from the crews themselves.

Both MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team witnesses said that recently introduced guidelines of sailing in TSS zones had confused sailors and that improvements needed to be made in the future to assist crews from inadvertently breaking sailing rules.

This changes the overall leaderboard, Abu Dhabi has 16 points leads, Brunel with 22 points has a better inshore record than Dongfeng who has now fallen back to 22 points and third place.

Then Alvimedica is now fourth on 27 point, overtaking MAPFRE also on 27 points with a worse inshore result.

The live race siituationwas been graphically described online.

Abu Dhabi not happy

The report from the Abu Dhabi's OBR reads as follows:

“I wanted to be in front of Dongfeng so we could control them”, Ian said in frustration as he sat on the bow in the light wind. “Now because of all this Exclusion Zone business, they’ve managed to slip away from us.”

Just minutes earlier, we had gybed several times around an invisible mark in the ocean. The spectators on the last few power boats shadowing us would never have guessed it was there – there was no blinking buoy or square floating mark – it’s marked by GPS coordinates.

This specific mark was the corner of a larger box that forms a Traffic Safety Separation Exclusion Zone. Consisting of two lanes for incoming and outgoing ships with a figurative barrier between, oceangoing vessels use these TSS areas for safety in high traffic areas. Before the leg, race management decided that teams needed to either respect the correct flow of traffic in the lanes or not enter the zone at all.

Dongfeng, Mapfre, and SCA entered the zone.

We watched as their courses on the nav computer sailed deeper and deeper into the red colored box against the traffic flow. Their routes didn’t just cut the corner on a piece of open water with little significance – no, they were the equivalent of riding a bike across an eight-lane highway and then turning left into oncoming traffic.

They had raced several miles down the course while we had to perform several tacks to get around the zone. Ian, SiFi, and the rest of the guys – still buzzing on deck from the magnificent send-off in Newport – were furious at the loss.'

Will there be a penalty? There was, it was one point or one place on the overall standings.



Specifics of the Hearings are:

Case nº 11
Protest Race Committee vs TEAM SCA: Sailing against traffic flow in TSS
- Rules alleged to be broken: RRS 48.2; COLREG rule 10.b(i)

Case nº 12
Protest Race Committee vs TEAM SCA: Sailing into the Rhode Island Sound Exclusion Zone 2
- Rules alleged to be broken: RRS 28.1; Leg 7 Addendum 5 - SI 5

Case nº 13
Protest Race Committee vs DONG FENG RACING TEAM: Sailing against traffic flow in TSS
- Rules alleged to be broken: RRS 48.2; COLREG rule 10.b(i)

Case nº 14
Protest Race Committee vs TEAM MAPFRE: Sailing against traffic flow in TSS
- Rules alleged to be broken: RRS 48.2; COLREG rule 10.b(i)