Earlier this week I reposted an old piece I wrote on why people don’t protest each other in club racing, and why we need to work towards getting more protests (or at least more arbitration) in our regular sailing.

Of course, there’s no such problem for the elite professionals. They just have on-the-water judges or TV judges to make decisions in real time.

But even that doesn’t work out perfectly for all concerned.

If you weren’t watching SailGP Denmark recently, then you may have missed this rather interesting rules moment:

For those that have decided that watching millionaires pinging around under-sized racetracks in unfeasibly complex foiling machines isn’t their vibe, it is worth mentioning that the rules are different for mark roundings from “normal” sailing.

(As an aside, if you haven’t watched SailGP then I recommend you do – despite all my snarky comments. It may not be the round-the-cans sailing most of us are used to, but it can be good fun to watch, and pretty tense at times too.)

The ever-interesting Mozzy Sails explains the rule very well here, with his interpretation of the situation:

Back in the world of boats with actual sails, and hulls that touch the water, things are only a little better.

The women’s 470 Olympic medal race ended in disarray, with the French team protesting the British, accusing them of team racing with the Polish sailors to relegate the French from silver to bronze. Here’s what happened:

You can understand why the French were upset. The British had gone from second at the last windward mark all the way down to fifth at the leeward mark and, crucially, fell between the Polish and French boats.

I was watching it at the time and remember saying to my (thoroughly and completely uninterested) wife that the French would not like what had just happened.

It looked to my eye like the British were just playing it safe – secure in the knowledge that they had the Gold as long as they didn’t get a disqualification from something silly (like not giving another boat enough mark room). But it must have been horrifying to see from the French perspective, as one boat’s super-cautious approach cost them a silver medal.

That said, I was pretty surprised that, with the on-the-water judges having clearly seen the incident, and with their coach available to talk to immediately after the race, they went ahead with the protest.

I suppose that’s the difference between elite sailors like Nathan Outteridge and Camille Lecointre, and us club racers – they’ll protest on the chance that they might catch a break, whilst we don’t protest so we don’t feel like an asshole.

Although I suppose there may be one or two other things they do differently.