Q1. What is the difference between an appeal and a request for confirmation or correction?

A1. An appeal is a claim by a party to a hearing, asserting that the protest committee decision in that hearing was incorrect, that the protest committee’s procedures were faulty, or that a hearing was wrongly denied – see rule 70.1. A request for confirmation or correction – sometimes called a ‘reference’ - is made by a protest committee under rule 70.2. Once these have been validly lodged with the RYA, the RYA’s procedures for handling appeals and references are the same. A protest committee, knowing that a party to a hearing does not agree with its decision, will sometimes forestall an appeal by referring its decision.

Q2. How are appeals and references submitted to the RYA?

A2. Via the form available at Appeals

Q3. Who decides appeals and references?

A3. The Racing Rules Committee of the RYA, a team of volunteers which meets around 9 times a year to decide appeals and references. It also has many other responsibilities.

Q4. What is the procedure for lodging an appeal?

A4. It is set out in Appendix R of the Racing Rules of Sailing, as changed by three RYA prescriptions. The prescriptions, effective from January 2025, are printed in the RYA version of the Racing Rules of Sailing. However, prescriptions may change from time to time, and the latest version is to be found on the RYA website.

The website address for all rules issues, including appeals and references, is Rules.

First, you must notify RYA Racing of your intention to appeal, no later than 7 days after receiving the protest committee’s written decision or its decision not to reopen a hearing. No details are required at this stage, however if you have all the information there is no need to separately submit an intention to appeal and you may submit the appeal directly.

Second, you must then complete the appeal form and submit it to RYA Racing within 15 days of when you notified the RYA of your intent to appeal.

The appeal form is available on the RYA website.

You must include several documents listed in rule R2.2, of which the most important is a copy of the decision of the protest committee that is being contested (facts found, applicable rule(s), conclusions and decision) – so if you think at the end of a hearing that you may wish to appeal, ask immediately (and certainly within the next seven days) for a copy of the protest committee’s decision – see rule 63.6(b). If you cannot obtain a required document in time, the appeal form allows you to mark it as ‘to follow’ or ‘not available’, as applicable.

The appeal form and all associated documents can be submitted electronically to the RYA, provided that the quality of any scan is good enough for the document to be legible.

Q5. What is the procedure for a protest committee to refer a decision?

A5. No form is needed. The protest committee has 7 days in which to send a copy of the written protest together with its facts found, applicable rule(s), conclusions and decision to the RYA, with a request for confirmation or correction of the decision.

Q6. Is there any charge for this?

A6. There is no charge for an appeal by members of the RYA. There is no charge for a reference by a protest committee. There is a charge, the current level of which can be advised by RYA Racing, for an appeal by a non-member. (Even though sailing clubs will be affiliated to the RYA, that does not make their members RYA members. Payment of the appeal fee can be avoided by a prompt application for individual RYA membership, which will not only cost less than the appeal fee but will provide many other benefits.)

Q7. Is there anything else that can be done before lodging an appeal?

A7. If you think that the protest committee has made a mistake in its decision, you can ask it to reopen the hearing, but you must do this in writing within 24 hours after being informed of the decision (or 30 minutes on the last day of racing) - see rule 63.7. Only a party to a hearing can ask for a reopening, and the protest committee can decide not to reopen. If the protest committee decides not to reopen after you have asked it to do so, your time limit for appealing begins when you learn this. You do not have to ask for a reopening, and you can go directly to lodging an appeal. However, a reopening, if granted, may result in justice being done more quickly, and you retain the right of appeal against the outcome of the reopening.

Q8. Who can appeal?

A8. Only a party to a protest committee hearing can appeal against the decision in that hearing. If you believe that a protest committee made a mistake in awarding redress in a hearing to which you were not a party, you cannot directly appeal. If you believe that the redress given to another boat has unfairly affected your own score, then you yourself may request redress, and you will have the right to appeal if your request for redress is refused.

Decisions from Arbitration cannot be appealed. Rule 70 (Appeals) does not apply to the arbitration decision since this is not a protest committee decision or procedure.

Decisions from an international jury cannot be appealed (rule 70.3). Furthermore, in certain other situations defined in rule 70.3, the right of appeal may be denied – but this will always be stated in the notice of race or sailing instructions.

Q9. What can you appeal about?

A9. You cannot appeal directly against the facts found, since the RYA is required to accept those facts – see rule 70.1. However, if the facts given are inadequate, the RYA will take steps to obtain adequate facts – see rule R5. One type of ‘inadequate fact’ that would lead the RYA to seek to get better facts is a fact found that appears clearly perverse in the light of all the information in the appeal. However, some appeals fail because they are in effect a disagreement between the views of the appellant and the protest committee as to what happened.

You can certainly appeal against the conclusions of the protest committee. The appeal form asks you to identify the racing rule or the sailing instruction (or other document governing the event) that you believe the protest committee misapplied.

You can appeal against the procedures of the protest committee. Normally, an appeal on procedural issues will succeed only when an objection to defective procedure was made at the original hearing. It is not a way of getting an otherwise correct protest committee decision overturned on a technicality. A denial of the right of a party to be present throughout a hearing may result in the upholding of an appeal.

You can appeal if you are denied a hearing of your protest or request for redress (rule 70.1).

Often the outcome of a successful appeal against a protest committee’s procedures will be the granting of a new hearing by the same or a different protest committee, from whose decision all parties will retain the right to appeal. Likewise, the outcome of a successful appeal against denial of a hearing will usually be the granting of a hearing.

Q10. What should a protest committee do to reduce the risk of an appeal?

A10. It is important that protest committees do not confuse finding facts with reaching conclusions when writing their decision. Without a fact, there cannot be a conclusion. Writing clear, non-judgemental facts is a vital part of protest committee procedure, whether or not there is any prospect of an appeal or a reference. The facts found are a statement of what happened. They should provide a clear picture of the incident that could be readily understood when read by someone with no knowledge of the incident or of the club – for that is the precise position of the members of the Racing Rules Committee who will hear any resulting appeal. The facts are what the protest committee believes is the most likely scenario to have occurred based on the evidence it has heard.

Q11. What should a protest committee do when an appeal is likely?

A11. It should ask itself whether it might have made a mistake, leading to the option to reopen the hearing and forestall the appeal process. Informal advice can be sought from RYA Racing.