Dick Rose addresses this situation exactly in his regular rules column in the latest Sailing World magazine (June, 2007). Please read it if you haven't already.
I have read the whole discussion and would like to compliment Isotope 42 for his excellent commentary. Mark, thanks for your tip of the hat to me - I do not read this forum as often as I used to so this is the first I saw this discussion but Dick Rose's article and Isotope's commentary covers the questions. Here is a link for more rules articles from Dick Rose at Sailing World's website, including at least a couple that are closely related to this discussion:
http://sailingworld.com/article_search.jsp?typeID=402&categoryID=726&m=4BTW, Dick Rose has served on the USSA Rules committee since the early 70s and the ISAF rules committee since 1991, so while his articles are just his opinions, they are EXTREMELY knowledgeable and expert ones.
