I will be involved in a protest hearing. I protested a boat that hit me and destroyed my mast along with some other damage. I have been told the damage to my boat is $50,000 although I do not have an estimate yet. This was a race where my L-36 was on a course to Blackaller in SF Bay and the boat that hit me was going to Blossom Rock on a different course as they were in the Big Schooner class. The boat that hit me was 82 feet long and weighed 62 tons with a steel hull.
I have attached a GPS chart showing where we were hit and the straight line course to Blossom Rock as a proxy to their course. We were on our tack for just over one minute. They had gone around a different mark than us so had been on their course longer. I was tight on the wind which would put them 20 degrees off the wind to windward. Both boats were on starboard tack I would estimate they were going 11 knots and I was going 6 knots. They were clear astern. I did not see them until I heard yelling from their deck to their skipper to fall off. I turned around and saw their bow about a boat length from our stern. We were hit from behind a few seconds later.
Some people said they thought we were trying to cut in front of the big schooner. While I can understand that given the crossing courses, I was just sailing my proper course focusing on going fast. I never saw them so to whatever degree I was cutting in front of them, my intent was to race and nothing I was doing had anything to do with them. I had just a few seconds between being aware of them and being hit.
We here hit about 2 inches forward of the transom on the windward toe rail by their bobstay. Their bowsprit came inside our backstay. Our boat spun in a tight circle, I would estimate a 2 meter radius, and that caused their bowsprit to pull our backstay hard enough to explode our wood mast which mame down all around our crew. Nobody was seriously hurt. I have not found serious damage to the hull. I feel very lucky.
I should point out that there is a persistent shift that you can see in the track and is the reason we continued past LH for 6 minutes before tacking. I estimated that the port tack is 30 degrees favored at the north end of the bay compared to tacking and taking BH on port. Our plan was to go 3 minutes past LH (mark 1) before tacking for every 10 degrees the wind was south of west. The wind was 250 so we went 6 minutes and tacked. When we tacked, we saw Alma quite far in front of us and felt we would not tangle with that big schooner by tacking when we did. We never saw the boat that hit us. I am a very cautious sailor and started midline to avoid the 7 large boats that had the same start as the 3 L-36s. I was not happy with starting with such large boats but thought the right thing to do was just take a couple second hit on the start to avoid tangling with them. That said, I don't know what I would have done even if I had seem the boat that hit me as if I had changed course and we then had a collision, it would have been my fault. I guess had I seen them before I did, I could have fallen off and gone parallel until they passed. But it I had fallen off when I saw them, they would have sunk me. I almost passed to windward of them.
My question is, do they have any defence? Anything I should be ready for? I have never attended a protest hearing so don't know what to expect. What evidence should I bring or not bring? Any advice is appreciated.
Here is our GPS track. G1 is LH, the first mark. The second mark is C on a chart but is not on what I posted and if you look at it, you will see we were counting on making up a lot with the persistent shift as C is 35 degrees to weather of our GPS track.
I have attached a GPS chart showing where we were hit and the straight line course to Blossom Rock as a proxy to their course. We were on our tack for just over one minute. They had gone around a different mark than us so had been on their course longer. I was tight on the wind which would put them 20 degrees off the wind to windward. Both boats were on starboard tack I would estimate they were going 11 knots and I was going 6 knots. They were clear astern. I did not see them until I heard yelling from their deck to their skipper to fall off. I turned around and saw their bow about a boat length from our stern. We were hit from behind a few seconds later.
Some people said they thought we were trying to cut in front of the big schooner. While I can understand that given the crossing courses, I was just sailing my proper course focusing on going fast. I never saw them so to whatever degree I was cutting in front of them, my intent was to race and nothing I was doing had anything to do with them. I had just a few seconds between being aware of them and being hit.
We here hit about 2 inches forward of the transom on the windward toe rail by their bobstay. Their bowsprit came inside our backstay. Our boat spun in a tight circle, I would estimate a 2 meter radius, and that caused their bowsprit to pull our backstay hard enough to explode our wood mast which mame down all around our crew. Nobody was seriously hurt. I have not found serious damage to the hull. I feel very lucky.
I should point out that there is a persistent shift that you can see in the track and is the reason we continued past LH for 6 minutes before tacking. I estimated that the port tack is 30 degrees favored at the north end of the bay compared to tacking and taking BH on port. Our plan was to go 3 minutes past LH (mark 1) before tacking for every 10 degrees the wind was south of west. The wind was 250 so we went 6 minutes and tacked. When we tacked, we saw Alma quite far in front of us and felt we would not tangle with that big schooner by tacking when we did. We never saw the boat that hit us. I am a very cautious sailor and started midline to avoid the 7 large boats that had the same start as the 3 L-36s. I was not happy with starting with such large boats but thought the right thing to do was just take a couple second hit on the start to avoid tangling with them. That said, I don't know what I would have done even if I had seem the boat that hit me as if I had changed course and we then had a collision, it would have been my fault. I guess had I seen them before I did, I could have fallen off and gone parallel until they passed. But it I had fallen off when I saw them, they would have sunk me. I almost passed to windward of them.
My question is, do they have any defence? Anything I should be ready for? I have never attended a protest hearing so don't know what to expect. What evidence should I bring or not bring? Any advice is appreciated.
Here is our GPS track. G1 is LH, the first mark. The second mark is C on a chart but is not on what I posted and if you look at it, you will see we were counting on making up a lot with the persistent shift as C is 35 degrees to weather of our GPS track.
