1. There is little doubt that US Sailing will adopt the mandatory membership requirement for individuals who are in charge of or will take the helm of a boat entered in an event governed by the RRS.
So what is the alternative? Is somebody going to come up with a different set of racing rules? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />
Are they copyrighted and/or proprietary? Couldn't we just take the ISAF rules (basically the RRS but without the US prescriptions) and use them with our own prescriptions? Are you not allowed to use the rules if you aren't a member? Since when is a set of rules proprietary? Can you name another sport that would attempt to protect it's set of rules from being used elsewhere? This is silly.
I think there is a real flaw in the thinking that the deciding factor for membership is for events that are using the RRS. I believe this is the only play they have for requiring membership and even this has some legality issues. They can't dictate how the clubs operate since they don't own any part of the club so they've chosen to mandate membership through the RRS? The leverage they can apply is real enough though.
