Redress Denied and No Racing On Day Two of Cork

It was a long day in Canada today, despite no racing.  My day started with an 8:30 AM redress hearing for an alleged OCS in yesterday's second race.  I went into the room with fellow American Rob Crane, and the two of us argued that we were unfairly called over early by a pin boat that was not anchored, but rather hovering above the start line (we were using a buoy as the pin end of the line).  We first started by listening to the tape recording from the Race Committee.  The tape from the Committee Boat end did not have us on there, and we listened to the tape from the pin end a few times.  The pin boat recorded our numbers right before the gun, but our argument was confirmed.  Shortly before the start, the pin boat recorder is heard saying, "I can't see the Committee boat, move up, move up, move up."  Despite pretty solid evidence that the pin boat was moving around and not sighting the line properly, the Protest Committee denied us redress.

Shortly after we were denied redress, two Canadian sailors who were also OCS in the same race filed for redress claiming that the sound signal that should accompany an individual recall flag was not audible, and because of ISAF Case #31, they deserve redress.  It was an interesting point, and I was actually unaware that such a case even existed.  Robert Davis went in, presented this information, and was awarded redress.  Lee Parkhill went in and walked out two minutes later with redress.  Rob and I then tried the same thing, having already acknowledged in our first hearing that we didn't see the individual flag from the pin end of the line, nor did we hear a sound signal.  Again, we felt pretty confident, but this time the Protest Committee decided they would not hear our case.  Again, we were denied redress.

So it was a pretty frustrating morning.  I do feel like we were wrongly called over, and it kind of rubs salt into the wounds to see two other sailors get redress and not us.

After all of that was done, we quickly rigged and launched for a 1 PM start.  After being postponed on the water for half an hour, we finally got a race off.  I had a good start at the boat and was playing the middle right when a few minutes into the race some lightning and thunder moved its way onto the course.  We were quickly abandoned and sent in.  On shore, the storm got closer and the breeze died, so the Race Committee abandoned us for the day without any races.

We'll try again tomorrow!