Since 2023, Joan has served as a judge and arbitrator for the Real Federación Española de Vela (RFEV) — the Royal Spanish Sailing Federation — sitting on protest committees at 30+ regattas a year. In March 2026 he passed World Sailing’s International Judge exam, the sport’s top-level qualification, recognized at regattas worldwide rather than only within Spain.
Real Federación Española de Vela (RFEV) — Spain's national sailing federation, the body that trains, certifies, and assigns judges to sanctioned regattas.
The role
A sailing race is governed by the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) — the rulebook that decides who has right of way when two boats converge, what a boat must do to round a mark cleanly, and what counts as a foul. When a competitor believes another boat broke a rule, they file a protest. It doesn’t get resolved on the water: it goes to a protest committee, a panel of judges who hear the case after racing, the same day, like a tribunal convened for exactly one dispute.
Joan sits on these committees. The format is adversarial and procedural, not informal: both boats’ representatives are present, each gives testimony, each can question the other’s account, the committee can call in any other witness (including, sometimes, its own on-water observers), and the decision has to be written down with the facts found and the rule applied — not just a verdict, but the reasoning behind it. That written decision is also appealable, which means it has to hold up to scrutiny after the fact, not just satisfy the room on the day.
Certification path
World Sailing — the sport's international governing body, which certifies judges above the national level.
National-level certification name and date held before the March 2026 International exam, if one was a formal prerequisite — pending from Joan.
March 2026 — International Judge, World Sailing. The international qualification sits above national-level certification and is recognized at regattas sanctioned by World Sailing anywhere, not only in Spain. It requires demonstrated judging experience, written exams on the Racing Rules of Sailing and judging procedure, and — depending on the level — observed performance at qualifying events.
World Sailing judge level/number, if one was issued alongside the March 2026 result — pending from Joan.
Notable events judged
2–4 named regattas or events Joan has judged, each with year and his specific role on the committee — pending from Joan.
How a protest hearing actually works
The courtroom comparison on Joan’s homepage isn’t just a figure of speech — the procedure genuinely maps onto it, step by step:
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Intake. A competitor who believes a rule was broken must notify the other boat on the water (hailing “Protest!”) and then file a written protest within the time limit set by the race committee — usually within an hour or two of the last race of the day finishing. Late or improperly filed protests can be dismissed before a hearing even starts.
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Notice and convening. The protest committee notifies every boat named in the protest that a hearing will be held, and when. Nobody is judged in absentia without having had the chance to be heard.
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Testimony. Each party presents their account of what happened — where their boat was, what the other boat did, what the water conditions and right-of-way situation were at the moment of contact or near-contact. The committee can also call other witnesses, including its own on-the-water judges if the committee positioned any during racing.
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Cross-examination. Each party, and the committee itself, can question the other party’s account directly. This is the part that most resembles a courtroom cross-examination: inconsistencies in a competitor’s story about their own boat’s track or speed tend to surface here, not in the opening statement.
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Deliberation. The committee retires to establish the facts — not opinions about who “should” have won, but a factual reconstruction of positions, distances, and actions at the moment the rule allegedly applied. Facts found are decided first, separately from which rule they trigger.
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Decision. The committee applies the Racing Rules of Sailing to the facts it found and reaches a decision: protest upheld (the offending boat is scored out of that race, per the RRS), protest dismissed, or occasionally a rule applied differently than either party argued for. The decision is written down with the facts found and the reasoning, not just the outcome — because it can be appealed, and an appeal body reviewing it later has nothing to go on except what’s on the page.
Judging philosophy
Joan’s approach to a hearing is procedural before it’s anything else: get the facts right first, independent of which rule they’ll turn out to trigger, and only then apply the rule — not the reverse. Deciding “who should win” before the facts are settled is the fastest way to bend the fact-finding to fit a preferred outcome, and it’s the first thing he tries to avoid in deliberation.
The second thing he optimizes for is a decision that survives being read cold, without him in the room to explain it — because on appeal, that’s exactly what happens. A ruling that only makes sense if you were there to see the tone of the testimony isn’t a good ruling; the facts found and the reasoning have to carry it on their own.
That discipline — separate the facts from the verdict, and write the reasoning so it stands without you — is the same one he’s building toward in law school, just rehearsed first on the water.