Wow. Just, wow...

I suggest more of you spend some quality time in seminars and serving on protest committees at larger (non-cat) regattas. Not to learn the rules (although, clearly, some of that is needed here), but to understand why simple is good, and accepting the rules as written is most often the best way to go.

Having said that, I do agree that a good rule change would be to allow boats to continue racing after receiving help when a crew member is in the water. It's not easy to imagine a scenario where they will gain an advantage doing this, without breaking Rule 2. [Edit: And by rule change, I mean an actual change to the RRS.]

Mike