Benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty, etc. I agree Jake, it was a BS call, but with the umpires and 'on the water instant penalty' program they are using, I guess they can't wait until after the race, in the protest room, to figure it out.
I think we were all pulling for Artemis to win at least one, and it did look like they had a great start going.
Now, why did they go out of bounds later in the race?
Undoubtedly because they were behind and needed to push the limits to try and get an advantage. They just pushed it too far.
The other frustration on their part is the length of time it took the umpires to issue the penalty...I'm sure they were trying to figure out what they had just been penalized for when it came up as they had just rounded the first mark. The competitor should have as much time to react as it took the judges to issue the penalty. ;-)
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in that umpire discussion that ensued after the contact. You can bet that it was not a unanimous decision.
