I'll jump in here a little bit.

40 minutes in a race like this is a very large penalty. The fact that Micha can overcome that penalty is pretty amazing.

I did this race one of the first years they really enforced the exclusion zone. Rod Waterhouse cut the corner and I think was penalized 15 minutes. It ended up very close between him and the second place team in the end. Zhik was there that year and I'm sure remembers as he was in the hunt that year.

They give you 4 gps points to round. I believe two of them have bouys and 2 are "imaginary". However you are also supposed to stay out of the zone with an imaginary line around it. It's pretty hard to navigate this in reality. Especially with trying to go fast on top of it. It's easy for someone that might not have a crew that is a wiz with a gps to make a mistake.

The year I did it all the boats rounded the marks and cut back in after they rounded. More wind inside and more favored. So the year I did it we could have all been disqualified. I think Rod was the only one that actually skipped a physical mark which made him stand out a lot more.

I don't know what the answer is but rounding imaginary marks is a bit silly. I think most of the racers feel this way also. They want to follow the rules but the rules are very unclear to everyone on the water. Example " You are the first place boat and the second place boat jibes in and you are supposed to keep going out to sea?" It's just hard to do and enforce properly.

I guess the only way to enforce it would be to lay actual marks and have a rib out there running the exclusion zone with the leaders.