Amer Sports One skipper Grant Dalton says Lisa McDonald, the other skipper in his two-boat campaign, should be penalised but not fined if she broke the rules at the start of the second leg of the round-the-world race in Cape Town.
McDonald's Amer Sports Too and Norwegian yacht djuice have been
told by the race committee they will face a protest for violating regulations preventing collisions at sea.
The race committee claimed both yachts in the Volvo-sponsored event broke the regulations by sailing into the traffic-separation zones just after the yachts left Cape Town on the way to Sydney.
Dalton said other boats had infringed as well but "as much as I am sorry for Amer Sports Too, as we are on the same team, I hope we don't have any more of this 'fine', carry on".
Dalton criticised the race committee this month for inconsistency over a protest ruling when German entry illbruck, which won the first leg, broke the rules by adding a weedcutter to the underwater propeller strut.
Illbruck was fined but did not lose race points.
Dalton called the fine-only penalty "weird".
He said it was unusual because most protests resulted in a penalty on the course.
The protest is likely to be heard next week, soon after the fleet arrives in Sydney.
SEB, sailing without a navigator since Marcel van Triest left the boat after the death of a family member, had a one nautical mile lead over illbruck last night.
Assa Abloy, News Corp and djuice followed and Amer Sports One and Amer Sports Too made up the rear of the fleet.
Amer Sports One were 64 nautical miles behind the leaders while the women's crew were a further 230 nautical miles back.
With less than 1400 nautical miles to sail to reach Sydney, the first of the fleet is expected to arrive on December 4.
