JJ Giltinan - NZ champion is robbed of redress after new Hearing

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZ on 3 Mar 2017 Following the hearing of protests during the Friday's rest day, Yamaha NZ, the New Zealand Champion and then overall series leader has had her redress award removed by the Protest Committee for the JJ Giltinan 18fter Championship.

The protest room saga began on the downwind leg of Race 3, Yamaha NZ sailing on starboard was hit by another NZ competitor, C-Tech who suddenly gybed onto port and briefly locked racks and boats with Yamaha, before Yamaha broke free and continued sailing briefly before capsizing herself.

Yamaha took the incident to the protest committee and claimed redress on the basis that she was a right of way boat which was under Racing Rule 62.1(b) suffered 'injury or physical damage because of the action of a boat that was breaking a rule of Part 2'. C-Tech was on port and broke RRS10 - where a port tack yacht of obliged to keep clear of a starboard tack yacht.

C-Tech undertook penalty turns and was not disqualified in the first Hearing, where she admitted her error.

Yamaha claimed their boom vang was broken in the incident and they were unable to continue racing without it in the conditions. The fleet had been struck by a 22kt rain squall with their No.1 rigs at the time Yamaha righted their boat and decided to withdraw from the race.

Skipper David McDiarmid was struck and suffered visible injury in the melee.

The protest committee agreed to an average points redress calculation after the first Hearing.

They found that Yamaha took avoiding action by crash gybing; that there was no collision as a result of that action by Yamaha; and that Yamaha's vang broke in the gybe.

Appliancesonline (David Witt) subsequently lodged two protests against Yamaha. The first related to a rounding incident in Mark 1, where Witt alleged that Yamaha had not kept clear and that his sprit had snagged the wire between the after end of the racks on Yamaha. That was not supported by some video and photographic evidence available and the protest was withdrawn before the Hearing on Friday.

Witt's second protest concerned the redress granted to Yamaha, which was treated as a new Hearing by the Protest Committee. Two members of the original three on the panel heard Witt's protest, with a new member joining.

The protest centred on video evidence (see clip below, the video can be seen in slow motion by clicking the Settings icon) - available at the time of the original hearing, in which it was claimed that the video, shot in the midst of a heavy rain squall showed that Yamaha's vang did not break in the collision, and that Yamaha had continued to sail on starboard for 18 seconds after the incident with C-Tech. Other photos were available at the time of the first Hearing.



Unfortunately, the video does not record the collision itself - with the camera swinging to the two boats just after the incident - showing Yamaha sailing out from under C-Tech and with the boat not under full power and control. (None of the crew is trapezing in the strong wind). The camera cuts away and then swings back as Yamaha turns and hits the water during an apparent gybe or sudden bear away. All video was shot in poor visibility during a torrential rain squall, making a definitive analysis impossible, even on a hi-res screen.

As seen from photos taken on Thursday's race Yamaha does have a mylar vang sleeve which would have prevented the boom from skying in the gybe, even with a broken vang from the collision with C-Tech as claimed by Yamaha - and accepted by the Protest Committee in the first Hearing.

On the basis of the evidence, in the second Hearing, the Protest Committee reversed their decision removing the redress granted to Yamaha under RRS 62.1(b). It is understood that the Yamaha skipper was only admitted to the second Hearing as a witness and not with the rights of a Party to the Hearing.

Two more races will be sailed in the series on Saturday and Sunday. Six crews have a good chance of winning the event.

Yamaha's only option at this stage is to lodge a further redress claim which must be heard under RRS 63.1, and depending on the decision from that Hearing other boats can lodge additional claims on the decision. Or, the matter can be taken to an Appeal with national authority Australian Sailing over the rules applied, and procedure followed, but not the determination of the facts.

An International Jury from which there is no Appeal is not used for the event. Appeals can be lodged up to 15 days after receiving a written Decision from the Protest Committee.