I like what Stuart Walker wrote in his wonderful book 'The Tactics of Small Boat Racing', in which he states;

"Take away the risk of disqualification, (and) replace it with a 30% penalty, a slap on the wrist, or a polite ignoring of the incident, and you take away the race; you change it from an all demanding, head-on, toe-to-toe, no quarter given or asked battle to victory or defeat, into a dull, compromising parody of "after you, Pier.""

The fact that, as I read this now after ** years, it sounds a bit 'old fashioned', speaks volumes to the slackening of attitudes toward discipline in recent times IMHO. But then I'm probably just a bit too 'old school' in most people's eyes <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />