If you're interested, ISAF has released the rules that will take effect in January. You can view them at http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/ISAFRRS20132016Final-[13376].pdf. There have been a number of wording changes, but the game is still basically the same. Many of the changes seem reasonable, and I have some misgivings about others. I'm still working through the differences, though, and expect to discuss them with other judges soon.

I haven't seen US Sailing's new prescriptions yet, and look forward to their publication. I've heard that the new rulebook will be available in a waterproof form.

Regards,
Eric

awesome. Thanks for the notice (I was wondering when those would come out). Do they have a file with the changes hi-lighted like they did last time?

The changes are denoted by a line in the margin of the new rule book. As far as I know, there is no mark-up copy available . . . yet.

There is a change bar in the right margin, but I think I see some differences that are not indicated.

Is there a companion guide to explain what they were thinking for each change?

It would be nice to know what perceived problem they intended to fix in each case.

I know of one, which involves our typical SIs.

Mike

There's not a concise guide, but you can wade through the submissions from the 2011 ISAF Annual Conference to see where/why the rules were changed. http://www.sailing.org/meetings/archive/2011-conference.php#confpapers (Click on the "Submissions" tab and then scan down the "Relating To" column for racing rule references.)

Cool. Thanks Matt (and obviously, Eric).

Mike

ISAF has published a "Study Version" of the new rules which contains the new rule book (changes in green) and all the submissions that led to the changes:
http://www.sailing.org/documents/racingrules/rrs2013-2016-study-version.php