Can I use the RYA Exoneration Penalty?
In August 2006 the governing body for sailing in the UK,
the Royal Yachting Association
(RYA), introduced an
arbitration process and the
Exoneration Penalty as a way to promote best practice.
It is a way for a boat that infringed a rule while racing, but
did not resolve the situation during the race by taking a
penalty, to accept a penalty after the finish.
Full details of the procedures to be
used are set out in the
Best Practices part of the RYA web site. In
essence, a boat taking an exoneration penalty:
-
Takes a 20% scoring penalty in the same
way as if she had put up a yellow flag during the race
(Racing Rules of Sailing 2005-2008 rule 44.3(c)) but with a
minimum penalty of two places, provided that her score is
not worse than that for Did Not Finish (DNF).
-
The Exoneration Penalty may be accepted
after finishing and before the start of any protest hearing
and is available for breaches of the rules in Part 2
and of rules 31.1 and 42.
-
Once accepted, it cannot be withdrawn
and a protest committee cannot further penalise the boat for
that incident.
Details of implementation in HAL's Race Results
- A boat is allocated an exoneration penalty by selecting the status XPA for its result.
- The only thing to note is that the 20% scoring penalty
is based on the number of boats entered in the race, as set
out in RRS 44.3(c). As with yellow-flag (SCP) scoring
penalties, this is worked out by taking the number of boats
in the class, that is the number of boats on the Class
Register, and multiplying by 0.2, rounding to the nearest
integer number.
