I don't see how anyone could be thrown out for cheating with a provided-boat event (at least, not for illegal masts, extra-wide boats, etc.). Totally losing me here.
2007 Pan Am Games in Brazil. Home team had some questionably class legal mods to their boat (old style mast head on Comptip, corner castings moved out on crossbars and re-riveted to increase beam). Talk to Bob M. - he was there and filed the protest that eventually had the Brazilians tossed out - they would have won the event. Boos and trash thrown at competitors and officials at the prize-giving ceremony.
It's the reason we have the "maximum sail hoist diagrams" in the Hobie Class Rules now.
I totally remember that situation (and am aware that it was the catalyst for the rule change).
In my mind, that was more of a "chartered boat" format, since the boats were used and not rotated. Sounds like this guy got to pick/bring his own boat and keep it for the whole event. At all of the "provided boat" events that I've been associated with, the boats are ALWAYS selected/assigned by lottery, and usually rotated during the event.
Anyone know who the officials were? While trash-throwing is extremely weak on the part of the fans, I would say this looks bad on a resume. They should have rotated the boats, at least then the jury could have done something better to fix the problem (such as throw out all results for that boat, or something).
Of course, starting with ensuring all of the boats were equal prior to the start would have been the logical first step (although they may have tried and missed these somewhat subtle changes). As this event clearly shows, there are unique issues with using USED provided boats, and even more reason to rotate.
Mike
