Three protest hearings occupied the International Jury at The Ocean Race Europe on Thursday, following the fleet's arrival into Genova, Italy.
The first case was a technical protest brought by the IMOCA technical committee against Allagrande Mapei Racing. The committee reported that it had not received photographic evidence of the team's engine being sealed within the required three-hour window after the start of Leg 3. At the hearing, it emerged that the photo did arrive, but 45 minutes beyond the deadline. The Allagrande Mapei team acknowledged the oversight, explaining that the crew's focus was on racing and the submission had not been sent on time. Evidence presented to the Jury confirmed that no performance advantage had resulted from the delay. The penalty handed down was ten minutes on the leg, with no effect on the overall scoring.
The second hearing involved a redress request from Team Holcim PRB, who challenged the tracking data used to determine which boat had passed the Leg 3 scoring gate in second place. That second-place position had been awarded to Paprec Arkéa, earning the team one point. The Jury reviewed both the primary and secondary tracking devices used at the scoring gate and found that all of them showed the same result: Paprec Arkéa had crossed ahead of Holcim-PRB. With no evidence to contradict those findings, the redress request was declined and the scoring results were left unchanged.
In a parallel dispute, Paprec Arkéa has lodged its own redress request over the Leg 4 scoring gate, where Team Holcim PRB collected one point for crossing in second place. That case has been set aside for a later hearing to allow additional evidence to be gathered.
A Racing Rules of Sailing protest filed by Team Malizia against Paprec Arkéa also came before the Jury, relating to a starboard-port crossing situation after the start of Leg 4. The protest was dismissed on procedural grounds. Team Malizia had not flown a red protest flag, and notification to the race committee came via a message sent four hours after the incident rather than promptly, as the rules require.
Malizia skipper Boris Herrmann acknowledged the outcome. "The protest was denied for technical reasons, and Team Malizia understands and respects the Jury decision on this," he said. "But along with Paprec Arkéa, we believe there are important questions around exclusion zones and requesting room to tack near these areas that should be answered and the Jury has agreed we can submit questions to them so we can all gain clarity about how the rules would be applied going forward."
