Appeal vacated !!?

Unruly, but back on track. The One World Cup is running again. We had great races in round five, and even greater races in round six. Round six was held by Tradewinds Yacht Club. Naturally we wanted our team to do well here, - in our own back yard. We finished in 44 minutes almost 7 minutes ahead of number two. Now, that felt good. I was not able to take pictures whilst sailing, so these pictures are from round 6, the 12 noon SLT heat, where I cojudged. It almost looks like real sailing, huh.

One World at Tradewinds.

Well, the boats are actually closing in on realism. Sitting in a boat you can't feel the heel of course, but you can steer, trim, hike and look around the course from your sitting position to make laylines and stuff like that. It's pretty good. Some boatbuilders claim to use real polars, and a few boats actually behave like it. So it is fun to sail downwind too. The TYC commodore, Liv Leigh, made sure we had fun by requesting lotsa shifts and gusts on the course.

All five of them going downwind.

We protested our heat in round four, because we thought it was not really a boat race but more a race of reboot, relogin and re-anything unsailorish. The process was very strange. There was no protest hearing. Six socalled experienced sailors gathered in some sort of council. Half of these were not in the jury. They were the Cup Organiser, the RD and one more. (EDIT: The RD tells me she was not voting on the dismissal. The cup organizer clearly states the opposite in the appeal.) Anyway, they dismissed the protest - no grounds given, and they immediately offered us the option of appeal. Now, not having a hearing seems a little odd. Not giving grounds for dismissal is strange. Having a council of six sailors including the RD vote, when there are really only three judges assigned to the race... thats weird. Naturally we appealed.

Beating back up.

First the appealing authority choose to focus on fair racing, granting us redress, thus canceling the heat. After a few days I was blackmailed to withdraw the appeal. I said no way; Can't negociate that. Talk to the skipper. Then the appealing authority vacated parts of the ruling. Another team then threatened to pull out, unless the entire appeal was vacated. After a day more, the entire ruling was vacated. The only explanation given was, that the protest should have been dismissed, because we did not protest under the right rule. Strange idea. Rule 61.2 clearly states, what must be in a valid protest, and that does not include a rule. We are allowed to protest, and then not provide a rule until the hearing; Only there was no hearing. Such a  laugh.