(a) Before the Recording Judge can process the judges’ cards, any competitive fouls through deemed interference must be confirmed by the Referee who shall make a decision in the prescribed manner.
(b) Fouling occurs where a competitor interferes with another competitor who is deemed to have right of way and their scoring potential is hindered.
(c) Judges must be careful when deciding if an infringement has occurred and consider the circumstances such as when two competitors stand at the same time on two separate peaks that eventually meet. Where there is only one available direction on any given wave, the competitor on the inside shall have unconditional right of way for the entire duration of the wave.
(d) Where a judge considers interference has occurred whilst riding a wave or paddling for a wave, they shall mark their card by recording the offending competitor’s ride with a “triangle”. They shall also mark an arrow pointing to the fouled surfer’s ride. This action will allow any subsequent protest to identify which competitors were involved.
(e) Where a majority of judges in the Judge’s Panel record interference, the following procedure will apply:
- (i) Should a majority of judges call interference, then a penalty shall be applied as described in this Section. However until this is determined the offending competitor’s ride shall be judged and recorded on the judge’s card.
- (ii) Under the best two wave scoring system, if the majority of judges agree on the interference (as determined by the triangle on judge’s card) the interfering surfer will be penalised with a zero score on the wave on which that competitor interfered. In addition, the competitor shall lose 50% of their second best scoring ride. For example if the competitor’s second best scoring wave is a 6.8 then it will be counted as 3.4 on the scoring card.
- (iii) If a competitor repeatedly interferes with other competitors the judges shall report this to the Referee who shall determine if the competitor should be penalised or disqualified from the competition.