There are some very helpful posts here for the discussion. Thanks Macca and Rich for the inside scoop and applicable class rules references.


Matt, I’m totally with you on your last sentence, it is sad (but a reality) that a minority of folks can and do choose to push the limits and ruin it for everyone else who is playing fairly. Rules are the primary hedge against this.


Mark, I agree with all of this (and you beat me to it!)…


Mark, this misses the point. Everyone wants the events to be fair. Rules help get you there, and when the rules are broken, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they need to be changed to have a fair game.


One thing I would like to see some discussion on is the authority of the technical committee. I didn’t see anything in the NOR giving a technical committee any authority at this event. The F18 class rules (section A8) state that the IJ is responsible to interpret the class rules. Can someone help me to understand this?


Now, the list of issues in the posts above poses a conundrum for the OA and IJ. Ultimately, the event is for the sailors, so usually the first thing to do is ask, what kind of event do the sailors want?

For example, I know that at Hobie regattas, if you hit a mark or another boat, you are expected to spin (or retire). At Opti regattas, unless you T-bone someone out of the blue, bumper boats and mark abuse is rampant and tolerated by the sailors. Sometimes the RC is asked if they intend to protest these clear violations, and the answer (typically) is “No, that’s the sailors’ responsibility.”


In the list of items above, I see the following (let’s just assume all of this is true):

1. A very small number of boats had sails constructed of non-approved materials.

2. All boats had sails that did not meet the required measurement for batten pockets.

3. Some number (not specified) of boats had dyneema trap lines instead of wires.

All of these are clearly violations of the class rules and thus illegal. Let’s pretend they all went to the IJ, what would happen?

1: Most likely, the boats protested for #1 would be tossed. This was a rule violation, and was only on a small number of boats. To be as fair as possible, they should have been warned before sailing and given a chance to change sails. If they did not, they should have been DSQ (or DNE) for the equipment violations for all races in which those sails were used. This should have been done on Day 1 to minimize the impact.

2: Most likely, this would have been dismissed. You can’t toss every boat (or there wouldn’t be an event), and unless someone could prove that a small number of boats had battens so large that there was a huge performance advantage, there’s really nothing to be done here.

3. This one is tougher. If all the boats violated the rule, then I could see it being dismissed. If a small number gained a significant advantage, then there would need to be some enforcement.


Definitely not as black-and-white as one would hope, but again, it comes down to the type of event that the sailors want to race. If no one chooses to protest, that may be an indication of sportsmanship, or may come back to bite the class later.

Thankfully for the IJ, these items did not go to protest. I would hate to have to decide on something where 50% of the boats were using the dyneema, for example…

Mike