A huge rule book is not the issue. Most sports if you get their book have as many if not more pages with explanations etc.

Sailing is difficult to understand and having rules where the outcome is a judgment call makes this worse for the GP. You step out of bounds, you get hit in the head; all obvious infractions. Having something that is up to a jury as a judgment call moves sailing towards the same category as the judged sports of gymnastics or figure skating. Here is where I feel there could be improvement in the rules.

For now we have what we have and as weekend warriors we just follow the basic do not hit anyone. There are only a few out there who are known for regularly abusing this, so knowing your competition really helps to plan maneuvers and tactics.