A boat that causes major damage MUST retire from racing, its in the RRS. Its plain and simple and to continue racing is violating the RRS, period.

One thing that may have been mentioned but I haven't seen it is insurance. If there is a claim for repairs many times insurance companies require a written report of the incident with fault assigned to one party or the other. Protests serve this purpose and the resultant decision of the protest committee to assign fault makes the decision for the insurance company. Without a protest hearing and protest form, the insurance company can't assign fault, and can't fulfill a claim.