A few ideas:
1) The forum for communication of rulings and complaints should be more transparent, accessible and obvious. When having an open meeting, post an agenda. Solicit agenda items. Cascade to Fleet reps. Run any open meetings via skype . All international meetings held in English.
2) Any persons ruling to advance an agenda (i.e. conflicts of interest, unethical behavior), will be dealt with harshly, i.e. loss or suspension of eligibility from the class, and removal from the ruling body. Cascade to regatta organizers. Enforce.
3) All complaint proceedings are private matters, until issuance of ruling. In the event that standings are affected by equipment interpretations, unless an example of egregious cheating (i.e. weight, sail plan, obvious box rule transgressions) all equipment complaints on-site should be considered ‘pending equipment appeal to the F18 ruling body’. This will limit on-site rulings to ‘on-the-water’ fouls and basic rules interpretations, rather than arcane equipment, or manufacturing rulings. Also, keeping the complaints private will cool and eliminate unnecessary 'churn' and acrimony. After ruling, cascade complaints and rulings, with simple allowed/disallowed rulings and a simple summary, to all National designees to all international web sites. Let the churn happen thereafter. This will avoid ruling by consensus opinion, which is both slow, and provides unacceptable sanctuary for executive leadership shortfalls.
4) Throw out all trivial equipment grievances immediately. (i.e. a sponsor's paint job, or decal as 'performance enhancing'). Inundating the ruling body with grievances is also not an acceptable means to influence race outcomes. Repeat trivial challenge offenders will be reprimanded by the ruling body, with penalties amounting to event suspension or disqualification, as a disincentive for recidivist ‘challenge’ behaviors.
5) When rules change, provide a context or explanation for the proposed change. A newsletter, or better yet, an appendix, specifying the nature and background of on proposed changes, along with the draft would be sufficient. Use a marked up adobe pdf as the draft document. Cascade to Fleet reps.
6) Rule in clear, concise, unambiguous English, using specific terminology. (The compass discussion was an example of an unintelligible mandate. The ruling body should have just listed devices that were class legal or illegal, or pending review.) If a device, or proposal is new, have the device owner or manufacturer submit the device manual, or proposed change for a ruling. Sometimes this can be a win-win situation. Make the equipment ruling mandate process decipherable to average sailors. Cascade to Fleet reps.
7) Decisions should be fast, fair unambiguous and final. Avoid ambiguity and jargon. The ruling body shall provide a list of pending actions and specific dates for when specific rulings/ rule challenges will occur. Cascade to Fleet reps.
8) Finally, Cost/performance analysis; The F18 Box rule was/is meant to keep the class inexpensive;
a) if an equipment innovation is cheaper and better, and fosters healthy manufacturing, better competition, faster learning, or is simply practical (speedpucks, certain sail cloths), safer (rudimentary GPS devices, tracking apparatus, etc.) or historical/unavoidable (paint, decals) it’s in. Common sense is better than arcane twisted logic or rationalizations.
b) If equipment very significantly drives up cost over an existing standard , or renders large numbers of boats competitively obsolete, it should be carefully reviewed. With the recent long-board discussion, I believe the main cost flash point for the F18 class was confronted in a generally positive and proactive fashion. However, the communication of the ruling was unnecessarily obtuse and difficult to interpret.
5) Manufacturers should meet annually with the class ruling body to discuss any design specification proposals, or concerns over new designs that may imperil the health of the class. Manufacturers should regard F18 cost containment as the Box Rule ‘high ground’.

Respectfully, Rex Denton