Protest Committee & Hearing Procedures
Should Vakaros racesence be part of standard Protest committees practice?
As we all know the protestee and protestor along with their witnesses come to the table with different points of view. While at a hypothetical event in upstate NY we had just that happen. As I am a big fan of the 15 minute protest or even better 3 minute justice we were stuck with figuring out who was telling the better story. After the hearing was closed, and one party showed up late with a snapshot of the situation we elected to go to the esteemed PRO to figure out if we were correct. What we found out was the whole race tracking ( accurate to 1/2 meter) is recorded and you can go to the incident and actually see how the boats acted and reacted with amazing accuracy. We reopened the hearing and changed our decision based on what we saw.
Typically the protestor/protestee comes in with the evidence and arranges to have it seen. In this case neither the protestor or protestee knew how to do this and no one on the PC knew as well. Having this knowledge prior to hearing testimony and witnesses could have made this 60+ minute process to a 15 minute discussion and we would have gotten the results right the first time
What is the experience of others? I would propose that standard practice would be this tracking information be a standard part of the protestor process to be viewed by the panel and protestor protestee before any questions are asked to expedite hearings and be more likely to get it right the first time
Comments? Suggestions?
Doc
Typically the protestor/protestee comes in with the evidence and arranges to have it seen. In this case neither the protestor or protestee knew how to do this and no one on the PC knew as well. Having this knowledge prior to hearing testimony and witnesses could have made this 60+ minute process to a 15 minute discussion and we would have gotten the results right the first time
What is the experience of others? I would propose that standard practice would be this tracking information be a standard part of the protestor process to be viewed by the panel and protestor protestee before any questions are asked to expedite hearings and be more likely to get it right the first time
Comments? Suggestions?
Doc
Created: Yesterday 12:56
Tips
100 WIND
Thank you for raising this topic.
2026-08-28
-
Al Sargent
Comments
Format:
You must be signed in to add a comment.
We were prepared as a PC for the new judge to swap sides and present the video if neither party did. In the end, one party eventually presented it, so no need for that step.
PS: meaning above that if the entire panel was experienced judges, I may have suggested presenting the video up front.
I remember that hearing well. Many parties, witnesses and LOTS of conflicting testimony. Though it was certainly satisfying to have our decision validated by the drone video the following morning, Vakaros data would have allowed the Jury to quickly process any testimony and conclude such a complex hearing without missing dinner.
I’m a fan.
Vakaros RaceSense, or another GPS based track, of one or both boats movements, provides a substantial portion of the information needed to determine what happened. Does not help with hails and other communications.
Can't see any downside to using the data from Vakaros RaceSense, or another GPS based track, whenever available. Similarly, for GoPro footage or video recorded.
What are the reasons for excluding such sources?
Note: John D. Farris said above "we need to teach judges what the RaceSense data actually represents". Agreed.
Could it replace the evidence presented verbally (and boat models) by both parties, therefore eliminating the “you tell what you saw” from both parties? Maybe.
Have both boats tracks reviewed first and then, if any portion(s) of it is not to the satisfaction of the PC, have the parties add any ‘clarifying details’ by allowing each to ask questions of each other and include witnesses (cannot exclude them) and the PC as well.
Our Annapolis J105 Fleet, in conjunction with Annapolis YC and Eastport YC, have adopted the RaceSense system. Along with that the other major J105 fleet in SanFran did so as well.
As was said, the compasses are very sensitive to being taken "out of whack" (technical term). So much so that, before each day of racing, they recommend calibrating the compass each time (which I do). This is divergent from what most people are familiar with where you calibrate your boat's compass once and your done. If this calibration isn't done correctly, the boat's orientation will be off on the plots. It will appear as if it is sailing cocked/sideways.
Also, yes the RS/Vakaros system has the outlines of many boats, but the representation of those boat outlines will be reliant on the display tool used. Many people/companies are developing their own viewing platforms. One of my fleet members built his own. So when viewing the data, be sure you understand what viewer is being used and how the boat outline is represented and scaled.
PS: In other words .. always remember that what you are viewing is someone's representation of data-streams of 1's and 0's. The choices made by the viewer-designer will affect what you are seeing.
However, we should fully understand/educate users and build it in properly to our process. (Doc's question...John Ferris' guide.)
A simple example of understanding is the accuracy/confidence level. 1-meter accuracy (95% confidence) means the distance between the 2 units may be 1.4 meters wrong. For Optimists this is more than half a boat length. The tracking software might say the boats are 2 meters apart, but mathematically, the actual gap could be anywhere from 0.6 meters to 3.4 meters.
(I have an example of a protest where the tracker (normal GPS) did not show the Optimist tacked and the protestee used that as a basis of a very compelling defence. However, Jury had a video which clearly did show the tack, and was able to make the correct decision. Had the jury relied on the tracker, the decision would have been wrong.)
Perhaps WS should be publishing guidance / limitations of use of digital evidence. Put it in the judges manual perhaps. With a list of tested systems even.
In answer to Doc's question then...
As for the hearing process, RRS 63.4(b) allows the protest committee to take 'any other evidence it considers necessary'. This opens the door to evidence not supplied by the parties. In which case, I don't see anything wrong with PC having access to tracker data - so long as they understand the limitations of them. e.g. If the tracker is not on the white-list, then accuracy must be presumed to be X.