International Jury rules on three cases in Genova

The International Jury heard three cases on Thursday at The Ocean Race Europe following the arrival of the fleet into Genova, Italy.

The first hearing was a technical protest against Allagrande Mapei Racing by the IMOCA technical committee which said it was obliged to report to the Jury that the committee did not receive a photo from the Allagrande team of its engine being sealed within the stated time limit (three hours) after the start of Leg 3.

In the hearing, the Jury heard that a photo of the engine seal was received 45 minutes late and Allagrande Mapei admitted the mistake saying the team was focussed on racing and unfortunately didn’t send it on time. Evidence was presented to show no performance advantage was gained. The Jury ruled Allagrande Mapei should get a 10 minute penalty on the leg. There is no scoring impact.

The second hearing was a request for scoring redress by Team Holcim PRB who questioned the accuracy of the tracking data used to determine which boat reached the Leg 3 scoring gate in second place and collected the one point that was awarded to Paprec Arkéa.

The Jury found the tracking devices used for the scoring gate (primary and secondary) all showed the same results - Paprec Arkéa crossing the scoring gate ahead of Holcim-PRB - and there was no evidence that countered those results. Therefore no redress is given and the scoring results stand.

In a mirror image case, Paprec Arkéa has also requested redress for the Leg 4 scoring gate where Team Holcim PRB was awarded one point for crossing in second place. That case will be heard at a later date to allow more evidence to be collected.

There was also a Racing Rules of Sailing protest by Team Malizia against Paprec Arkéa for a starboard-port crossing situation after the start of Leg 4. This protest was found not to be valid as Team Malizia did not fly a red protest flag nor promptly inform the race committee of the protest (a message was sent four hours after the incident), and so it was dismissed.

“The protest was denied for technical reasons, and Team Malizia understands and respects the Jury decision on this,” said skipper Boris Herrmann. “But along with Paprec Arkéa, we believe there are important questions around exclusion zones and requesting room to tack near these areas that should be answered and the Jury has agreed we can submit questions to them so we can all gain clarity about how the rules would be applied going forward.”