The hearing does not start when you introduce yourself. It starts when the parties walk into the room.

The physical layout dictates the psychology. Are the tables aligned? Is there water? Is the temperature controlled? A chaotic room invites chaotic testimony.

This is where you establish control. You are not a police officer; you are a facilitator of the rules.

Introduce the panel clearly. State the procedure. Confirm understanding. Do not rush the introduction—it is the only time to lower the heart rates of the competitors.

Never skip validity to "get to the good stuff."

Validity is the safeguard of the sport. If the flag was late, or the hail was missing, there is no case. Dismissing an invalid protest is not a technicality; it is upholding the rules of protest procedure.

Under Rule 60, a boat protesting an incident she saw on the water must hail "Protest" and, if her hull is longer than 6 metres, conspicuously display a red flag. If the other boat is out of hailing range, informing her at the first reasonable opportunity is enough, no flag needed. When delivered, the protest must be in writing and must identify the protestor, the protestee, and the incident; miss any one of the three and you have nothing to hear yet.

Time limit matters just as much as form. The default under the rules is two hours after the last boat in the race finishes, but check the sailing instructions first, most notices of race and sailing instructions set their own protest time limit, and that is the one that governs your event.

We are historians, not creative writers.

The goal is to rebuild the incident based on evidence. Ask open questions: "What did you see?" "How far were you?" Avoid leading questions. Let the silence do the work—sailors will often fill the silence with the truth.

Question each party and their witnesses separately, in the same order every time: protestor first, then protestee, then witnesses for each side, then the panel's own questions. A consistent order is not bureaucracy for its own sake, it stops a sharp party from tailoring their account to what the other side just said, and it gives you a repeatable structure to fall back on when a hearing turns tense.

When testimony conflicts—and it always does—how do you decide?

Go back to the last point where both parties agree. Start building the timeline from there. Use the "balance of probabilities." We do not need 100% proof; we need to know what was more likely than not to have occurred based on boat speeds and geometry.

This is also where a diagram earns its place. Ask each party to draw the incident, boat positions, headings, the mark, and compare the drawings against the last agreed point. Two independent sketches that converge on the same geometry are stronger evidence than either testimony alone.

The "Facts Found" section is the most critical part of the decision. It must stand alone.

Do not write "Boat A broke rule 10." That is a conclusion.

If a fact is not written here, it cannot be used in your conclusion.

A second example, this time from a mark rounding, shows the same discipline:

Notice the second version contains no rule numbers and no verdict, only what happened, in order. The rule gets applied afterward, in the Conclusions section, where it belongs.

Sailors arrive with adrenaline. Judges must respond with calm.

If a sailor becomes aggressive, do not match their energy. Lower your voice. Stop the proceedings. Remind them of Rule 69 (Misconduct) only if necessary, but usually, a firm, quiet pause is enough to reset the room.

If the behaviour continues after a warning, say so on the record and note the time. A protest committee can act on Rule 69 itself, or refer the matter onward, but only after the sailor has had a fair chance to be heard on the conduct question separately from the original protest.

We may argue fiercely in private deliberation. We are a monolith in public.

Once the door opens, there is no "I thought," only "The Jury decided." Dissenting opinions stay in the closed room. The Chairman speaks for the panel, but the decision belongs to everyone.

Judging Appendix P (Rule 42) requires a different mindset.

You are reactive, instant, and visible. Position the jury boat where you can see the body mechanics, not just the sail. Be consistent. If you penalize the leader for pumping, you must be ready to penalize the last boat for the same action.

Signal the penalty immediately, with the sound and flag your notice of race or sailing instructions specify, and log the sail number, time, and the specific action observed the moment it happens. A penalty decided on the water still needs a paper trail if it is ever questioned back on shore.

Not every unfair outcome is a protest. A boat that is capsized by a committee boat's wake, or scores badly because a mark was missing, has not necessarily broken a rule with anyone; she has been made worse off through no fault of her own. That is redress, governed by Rule 61, not a protest against another boat under Rule 60.

The panel's job in a redress hearing is different too: instead of finding who broke a rule, you are finding whether the boat's score was made significantly worse by something outside her control, and if so, what score fairly repairs it. The same fact-finding discipline from earlier in this guide still applies, write down what happened before you decide what to do about it.

Your decision is not always the last word. Where the national authority allows appeals, a party can challenge the protest committee's decision on a question of rule interpretation, though not on the facts you found, an appeal body does not re-hear witnesses or reweigh evidence.

This is exactly why the "Golden Rule" in this guide matters so much: a Facts Found section that stands on its own, with no gaps and no conclusions smuggled in, is what lets an appeal committee actually do its job on the record you handed them. A thin or sloppy set of facts is the single most common reason a decision comes back for a re-hearing.

One practical note for 2025-2028 events: appeal windows in several class and event appendices were shortened, some from 15 days down to 7. Confirm the current window in your notice of race rather than assuming the old timeframe, see our breakdown of what actually changed in the 2025-2028 rules for the full list.

Being an International Judge is a service to the sport. It demands knowledge, but it relies on character.

Windie builds race officer kits for the practical side of the job, and our guide to what a Race Officer actually needs on the water covers the equipment side of running a fair event.