Max Ebb — Marks and Obstructions

“Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die….” And everybody wants to talk about what happened out on the race course, but nobody wants to file a protest. It’s understandable. Why give up an evening with your friends at the dinner table, or your place at the club bar, for interminable rehashing in the protest room? They usually get it wrong anyway, and this is just a beer can race.

“That’s exactly why we should file!” insisted one of my crew. “This is bottom-tier, low-stakes who-cares racing, so let’s work the system, just for practice. It’s an opportunity to learn.”

I looked at my watch. We still had five minutes before time ran out for filing a protest.

“We can file online,” suggested the crew. “I’ll bring the protest form up on my phone.” That stopped me from complaining that I barely had enough time to find a protest form, look up the numbers of the rules infringed, and get it all to the race desk.

It went fast. All the online form asked for was the identity of the boats involved, and the approximate time and location of the incident. A minute later, it was filed.

“OK,” I sighed. “What time is the hearing?”

“Any minute,” the crew answered.

This was not good, I had just started in on my grilled salmon fillet. I was about to bring up the Sailing Instructions on my own phone, to see where the protest hearing would be held, but was interrupted by a strangely familiar female voice overtaking from astern.

“Like, what happened at the mark?”

It was Lee Helm, naval architecture grad student and occasional crew on my boat, although she usually opts for a newer and faster ride. I didn’t think she was racing that night; I would have asked her to call tactics for me if she’d been available.

“Take it from the top. The hearing is on.”

Then I remembered the addendum to our Sailing Instructions, something they call a “Rolling Mediation Hearing.” Experimental, and definitely “not to be used for navigation.” Instead of asking all the parties to the protest, and their witnesses, asking them all to kill their evening in “the room” or waiting to testify, the Protest Committee comes to us. Tonight the Committee was just Lee. She would work the dining room and the bar, assembling accounts from everyone who wanted to weigh in.

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