DSK wrote:
I've always thought this was just a cop-out. Some of the protest committees
I've been on have siezed on this as a reason to avoid disqualifying an
offender who deserved it.

My personal opinion is that as long as the prostestee knows he's being
protested, the protest should be valid. The idea of the flag is to
transmit information -- it tells the protestee that he's being
protested, and gives him a chance to do a 720 to exonerate himself. As
long as the information gets transmitted, the actual means used to
transmit it should be unimportant.

So, if I'm 6 feet away from the other skipper, and we have the following
conversation:

"Up, up, up!"

"You can't take me up that quickly!"

"Yes I can. Come on, stay up, stay up! OK, that's it, PROTEST!"

"Protest!? What'ya mean protest? There no way I fouled you".

It's pretty damn clear that the other guy knows he's being protested,
and he's got all the notice he needs to decide if he wants to play it
safe and do a 720 or take a chance and duke it out in the protest room
later.

But, that's not the way the rules read. The rules say I gotta put up
some stupid red piece of cloth. One of the dumber rules in the book,
IMHO.