Protest Committee & Hearing Procedures
Conflict between NOR and SI
I recently came across this in Another Forum (TM)
Rule 63.5(c) says
c) If there is a conflict between
(1) two or more rules that must be resolved before a decision can be made, and
(2) those rules are in the notice of race, the sailing instructions, or any of the other documents that govern the event under item (g) of the definition Rule,
then the protest committee shall apply the rule that it believes will provide the fairest result for all boats affected.
You can change 63.5 in the NoR/SI.
For example, you can state that in the event of conflict, the SI take precedence over the NOR.
It’s done a lot at low level events
Has anyone come across this?
What do people think about it?
Created: Today 10:54
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If so ... I'm curious what the perceived benefit is to the change. What is the preferable alternate standard for resolving the conflict?
PS .. in other words .. why change it and for what?
It appears that the advocates:
Giveing precedence to the SI over the NOR is exactly the change being suggested.
I've edited my OP to make this clear.
NIck's wording
is invalid unless it's accompanied by 'this changes RRS 65.3(c)'
I'm often AMAZED at how badly aligned some of the race docs I review are. It's like the RC (usually last to post) didn't take the time to carefully review the NOR already out there.
The RC should find these conflicts and work with OA to resolve them .. not strong-arm their preference over the OA's (IMHO).
Yea .. I don't buy that. It sows confusion to the racers .. putting it onto them to ignore what they read in the NOR.
If the SI is the preferred language and the OA doesn't want to issue an NOR mod, note that the SI changes the NOR (like any other rule change), thus calling competitor's attention to the fact that they might have read something different in the NOR.. but now it is changed in the SI.
What if the better, or more fair resolution is the language in the NOR but hands are now tied to the SI language?
Always better for the RC to coordinate with the OA early in the process before either document is published.
It is easy to change a si, but there are time constraints on the nor so care is needed.
Now some rule changes can be in the si or nor there is more room for trouble.
I heard but have not checked that unless the nor and si say the si parapount then this is not so.
Any comments on this latter point?
RRS 86.1(b) says
The notice of race or sailing instructions may change a racing rule.
It might be argued that because:
I think that, wherever the provision is, each 'conflict' between the SI and the NOR is a change to the NOR and is subject to the adequate notice requirement of RRS 89.2(b), that is to say this SI have to be published an adequate time before the effect of each change in the NOR.
If the precedence provision was in the SI and not in the NOR, that would indicate me that it was not part of a well thought out document control strategy, and I would regard any 'conflict' with convertible suspicion.
Bear in mind that most 'conflicts' occur by mistake, rather than being deliberate. If the race committee changes the NOR by mistake in the SI, and there is a precedence provision, the race committee and the protest committee are bound hand and foot by the mistake.
It makes no sense to make SI automatically and belatedly overrule a contract.
Judgement of fairness can take this into account.
All of this argues for extreme care to be taken when authoring a NoR, and all parties realizing that it's a contract between the OA and the Competitors.
IMHO, far better to leave 63.5(c) entirely alone and point out the risk to the OAs. Failing that, the Jury doing what's most fair seems exactly right.
So the SI was an easy (lazy?) way to deal with errors and corrections in the earlier published NOR. Just fix them in the SI.
Nowadays, (circa. 2021?) the NOR and SI guides are combined into Appendix J. The content for each was fine tuned. Appendix J2 discourages repetition from NOR to SI by using the words, "Unless included in the notice of race, the sailing instructions shall include the following:..."
So if the RRS document guidance is followed, it is unnecessary to have the precedence stipulated, since the two documents serve different functions. There is limited repitition of topics from one to the other.
Overlap of topics (and possible conflict) is much rarer now that the two documents are organised to way better than before.
Yet, we still see old school wording and habits cropping up here and there. Probably because the SI writers feel more secure (incorrectly so) with the 'precedence' backing them up when they make errors in the NOR. Or because they haven't actually thought it through.