Lots of overlapped boats “barge” at the stbd end of a Start line on Stbd tack, the mark is a buoy surrounded by navigable water.
Minor contact occurs between a number of boats with no damage or injury.
The leeward boat sails his Proper Course, but The boat above cannot keep clear because of the boat to windward of him and the boat above and the boat above ….
What happens if 2 boats in the middle of this “sandwich” protest each other?
How do the Rules sort this out?
Did all this contact occur before or after the starting signal? I ask because, by definition, a boat has no proper course before her starting signal.
If 2 boats in the middle of the pile protest and the boats to leeward and windward of the 2 were not identified, can the facts found state the “an unidentified leeward boat did not give boat W room to keep clear “?
Would the Protest Comm have to protest all boats in the incident if only 2 in the middle protested each other?
If the windward boats were unable to keep clear they are exonerated.
So when did the overlap occur?
When this happens, before or after the start, really doesn't matter unless L is limited by 17 and must bear away to her proper course after the start. In this case she is giving the W's more room not less. Before or after the start if L comes up at all then she will always be limited by rule 16. This is true no matter what her proper course is.
It just so happens a few days ago I was reviewing the USJM on his exact issue (USJM 2021 - pg 61)
To my reading, the narrowness of that list seems to basically nullify RRS 60.3(a)(2).
Looking at these 3 conditions individually.
#3 …that’s just Appx P, so RRS 60.3(a)(2) isn’t usually relevant
#1 … to get to RRS 60.3(a)(2), we have a valid protest of a boat for an incident and we are hearing evidence from the parties and witnesses. By definition of that situation, there are boats nearby that could have protested.
So that only leaves #2, a likely break of RRS 2.
Seeing that RRS 2 protest/decisions are rare by themselves, to have sufficient evidence presented for a PC to conclude that a 3rd boat, who is not a party to the current hearing, “likely” broke rule 2 … well that’s going to be incredibly rare.
The guidance seems to accumulate to basically recommending that US Judges not use RRS 60.3(a)(2), except for RRS 2
PS: After rereading the USJM, I now believe that the 3 points above were intended to instruct ONLY PC's that are 1st hand witnesses of the incident and NOT to restrict US PC's abilities generally under RRS 60.3(a)(2) .
Isn't the main issue here that a boat that is not a party to a hearing can't be penalized, not that they can't be included/ID'd in the decision and found to have broken a rule (a rule-breach which becomes the basis for exoneration for a boat that is party to the hearing)?
I could see 2 scenarios where the testimony consistently describes the actions of a boat that is not a party to the hearing (let's call it Boat-U) ...
In either case above,
given the apparent guidance in the USJM,it seems to me consistentwith that guidancefor a US PC to ..What bothers me here is that the leeward boat got fouled and protested, yet no boat is penalized. Maybe we should think of this as a flaw in rule 43? Note that we changed rule 62.1(b) in 2021 to eliminate a very similar situation with respect to redress, where a boat used to be able to get redress by claiming she was damaged by a boat breaking a rule, but didn't protest that boat or maybe even identify her. Now, boat that allegedly broke a rule and caused the damage must take a penalty (which, given the damage, would be to retire), or if not, the boat claiming redress has to protest her successfully.
Although I have to admit, at the Opti Nationals we had a busy leeward mark rounding situation where a boat was entitled to mark-room and was hit from behind causing her to hit the mark and another boat protested her for hitting the mark. The PC was confident that there was another boat involved that could not be positively identified by the parties and the witness because of the number of boats going around all at once. We exonerated her for hitting the mark by an unidentified boat that broke a rule. She probably should have taken a turn for insurance but she isn't required to.
FWIW, in the USJM guidance and their 3 points, on a more careful reading we find it has the phrase "on the water" buried in it. I think the intention of the USJM authors' 3-points were not to cut the legs out of RRS 60.3(a)(2), but rather outline guidance for PC's that are first-hand witnesses of the incident.
Just before the USJM quote above is ...
.. which would again lead to a reading that it's talking about competitors protesting each other.
If the intent of the USJM authors was focusing toward judges witnessing incidents on the water, I think that could be stated more clearly. Along with that, separate and additional guidance could be given as to when a PC might decide to halt the hearing and protest an outside boat when ID'd.
Also I think we need to account for the fact that it’s not necessarily the most windward boat who’s guilty. If W1 wants to come up and W2 doesn’t at least try to respond, then W2 broke a rule and W3 didn’t. In that case W2 should be penalized as she wasn’t compelled to break the rule. A PC would need to satisfy itself on that before making a more windward boat a party.
The bandaid solution I suggested in an earlier post is that the Judges Manual could say, in the section "Taking Testimony and Gathering Evidence", in Chapter 6, that if a party or witness can't even identify the boat they're talking about, their testimony should be given little to no weight.
However, as John described his incident and in the occasion that I had a mystery boat in a hearing, both parties and witnesses described a boat and it’s actions, but couldn’t ID it. In my case it was a boat from a different class … and the parties being in the same class were familiar with each other but not this other boat.
Can’t the PC weigh the evidence and apply a ‘balance of probabilities’ standard to the testimony and figuring out what likely happened?