It all comes down to judgment.... there is no way around it. If the class doesn't make it clear what the unwritten standards are, you KNOW, some individuals will use the rules as a weapon to win..... IMO, Those classes tend not to thrive! College sailing??... well it maybe a good thing that most of those sailors don't continue in the sport.
I think the choices are Change the Class... or Change classes. Heck when I got an A cat... I was proudly told that the class NA's had not had a protest hearing in years... Hmmm... the class culture was clear... take the penalty on the water.... If you really had a tough call... use the arbitration process.
(I am not totally convinced this is a good culture in the extreme... but the horror stories in other classes are pretty grim so the class culture is fine.... at any rate... it was certainly clear to me what the culture was with respect to protests.)
