It is not clear to me whether the owner of F16 is actually REQUIRED to display the nation code. "needs to" is not the same as "shall" or "must."
Is now changed into "must".
As Lee Parks at US Sailing told me, even ISAF International and Recognized Classes often do not display country codes if only racing within the United States and not participating in international events.
Well, independent of others, the F16 class does require this.
The reasons are that class voting is linked to these unique combinations and we have several double numbers in the F16 class that we can MAKE unique again by adding the nation code.
I understand that some of us need to get out and buy 6 sticky characters (including myself) but the cost of these is very small. And sticking them to the sail is easy as well. I think nearly all Taipans has nation codes already. Same with Stealths so these crews don't have to do anything.
If we want to be a serious class, and I got the impression than quite a few of you petitioned for that, than we must enforce these rulings.
Also, you said you will assign a nation code based upon the boat owner's country of citizenship or residency. Is this going to be the preference of the sailor applying for the number? If so, that should be added to that rule.
The skipper/crew may present a preference and the class association will decide wether to follow the preference or not. I don't really see a need to comment on this directly in the rules.
Also, if participating in an international event, the country code has to be based upon the country that person is representing in the event.
Only if that representation has any meaning. Till we have 100 boats or more on the line we will not enforce a qualifying structure based on nations and everybody that wants to participate can come and do so. I don't see us achieve these numbers within the next years and so anybody may choose to represent any nation they feel comfortable with as long as their residence or nationality is in agreement.
I think this is point where "we will cross that bridge when we come to it"
Right now, for instance, Robi might request and be given a country code of PUR, even though he is only racing in the United States. But if he is still in the United States when the F16's start having international competitions, and if he wants to represent the United States, he will have to replace the PUR with USA. Right?
That is correct. But only if these events are structured on nation representation; meaning that we allow only a certain amount of participants frome each nation or something. However that is very far off now and if ever we need to change this than replacing a few stickers by other ones is easily and quickly done.
Also not clear to me: If national F16 Class associations are formed in various countries, will numbers within those countries be assigned by the national class association, or will the numbers continue to be assigned by the F16 International Class Authority ad infinitum?
The international body will have the final say and their administration will take precedence but that don't mean that the national organisations handle the assignment of identifiers. The national organisations can well act as a intermediate and assign identifiers in predetermined ranges.
For example I envision the US association to have the power to assign "USA XXX" Codes to new members after clearing it with the international body; But they can't assign PUR XXX numbers for example. The international body will publize the identifiers allready given out so that each national body knows which numbers have been given our and which are still free.
Wouter
