Royal Cork takes protest against itself

SAILING: Organisers at the Royal Cork Yacht Club were yesterday obliged to engage in the highly unusual step of entering a protest against itself on behalf of a large number of entrants in the big boat category, Class Zero, following Tuesday's second race.

The situation was a direct result of the light weather conditions that have bedevilled the event all week but has led numerous leading sailors to question the quality of race management this year.

Ford Cork Week's reputation has been founded on the sound guiding principle of providing high-quality racing on well-run courses.

However, opinion is sharply divided on the issue. One well-known owner said that race officers faced "an impossible task" in setting true courses when breezes were likely to shift.

The "self-protest" arose in the wake of Tuesday's second race on the Windward/Leeward course, south-west of Roche's Point, for the IRM High Performance, Class Zero and Class One fleets that contain the largest and most hi-tech racing yachts, many of which have world and Olympic champions crewing.

The sailing instructions that govern any sailing event specify time limits for every race in Cork of two and half hours. Yachts finishing outside this limit are scored maximum points as "did not finish".

On Tuesday evening, even though many of the boats affected knew they had exceeded the limit, the provisional results listed all boats that finished with their handicap-corrected results and points. However, later that evening, a revision of these results included DNF boats and the results altered radically.

In the Class Zero, just three boats out of 25 were shown as finished and awarded top three places according to handicaps. However, as the remainder of the fleet weren't included, their handicaps weren't taken into account and all received equal maximum points.

The fleet was collectively outraged when the revised results became known yesterday morning. While the race management were strictly correct in applying the time limit, the yachts countered that the race was clearly unfair if less than 15 per cent of the class received a result.

The course, they claimed, was too long for the light conditions and the race officer should have shortened it to suit the failing breeze.

Recognising the problem, the event organisers immediately moved to allay concerns by applying for redress to the International Jury against itself.

Yesterday lunchtime, the jury ordered that the entire fleet affected should be reinstated on the points they would have scored for the race. Furthermore, the sailing instructions were also amended to allow for additional racing time.

However, the jury also directed that the three boats that scored top three results, also should receive these places, effectively giving that race two sets of top three finishers.

The effect of this was to defuse an embarrassing situation and silence growing criticism. Privately, several event officials acknowledged that the matter was one of a series of race management problems this week that need to be addressed.

On Monday, the Sigma 38 class, racing for their championships at this event, ended an overnight offshore race with the entire class scored DNF, again due to lack of wind.

Irate class members argued that provision should have been made to shorten the course earlier.

The RCYC, for their part, contended that their own class rules stipulated that an offshore course must be raced to have a valid championship and that shortening a course overnight was fraught with difficulties.