A Judge’s Tale
by US SAILING Judge Noel Field

I have served as a US SAILING judge for almost 30 years. I am also currently serving on the US SAILING Review Board which hears matters relating to unsportsmanlike conduct under Rule 69. So when I run into a matter like the one I ran into last weekend on the last day of Sail Newport’s Opti and Laser 4.7 Newport Challenge in Rhode Island, it was a joy to see.

I was serving not only as Jury Chair but also finishing line recorder and reporter. After we were all ashore and the scores had been posted, a young lady came to see me with an inquiry about the scoring. She said that in the first race of the day she thought she had done better than we had scored her. I took her and her father to the scorekeeper who had taken the results from me over the telephone and entered them in the computer. It turned out that he had reversed a couple of digits and the young lady was correct.

The result of the change moved her from second place in her fleet to first. If the story had ended there, it would have just been a nice story, but what I found out was that the father of the young man who had been previously scored in first place for the class in the regatta was the person who brought the error to the attention of the young lady. The father and son had seen the score sheets and thought the young lady had finished better in that first race than had been reported on the score sheets, and even though it meant that the son would lose his first place position, nevertheless, they brought it to the young lady’s attention.

It gave me great pleasure to make a special sportsmanship award to Richard (the father) and Gary (the son) Prieto for their outstanding act of good sportsmanship

by Noel Field

>> If you've witnessed similar acts of great sportsmanship behavior, US SAILING's Sportsmanship Committee would love to hear from you. Online nominations for US SAILING's 2006 W. Van Alan Clark Sportsmanship Trophy are currently accepted at www.ussailing.org/sportsmanship.