Sailing star has already paid the price
No action is being taken by the RYA over Ben Ainslie’s ‘gross breach of conduct’ following the top sailor’s fracas with a TV crew during a championship race in Perth, Western Australia.
The RYA Tribunal agreed with the decision of the International Jury that the behaviour of Mr Ben Ainslie amounted to a gross breach of good manners and conduct that brought the sport into disrepute.
Having considered all the evidence put before it, the Tribunal was satisfied that it would not be appropriate for the Tribunal to impose a penalty over and above that imposed by the International Jury at the event.
In reaching its decision the Tribunal acknowledged that the effect of the penalty imposed by the International Jury was to deny Mr Ainslie the possibility of taking part in the medal race for the event.
The Tribunal also recognised that there was an apparent lack of active management of media boats at this and previous events leading to repeated infringements of the provisions of the event media boat guidelines. In addition, formal rights of redress against official boats were not available to competitors.
In the February issue of Yachting Monthly we reported how Sir Robin Knox-Johnston blamed race organisers for letting media boats too close to the Finn Championships during which Ainslie leapt from his boat swam to the media RIB, clambered aboard and remonstrated with them.