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Following the ISAF Annual Conference in Singapore there has been a change to the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing 2005-2008, meaning Rule 40.2 relating to quick release trapeze harnesses will not take effect until 1 January 2009.
The change approved by the ISAF Council on 12 November in Singapore is as follows. 40.2 A trapeze or hiking harness shall have a device that can quickly release the competitor from the boat at any time while in use.
Note: This rule takes effect on 1 January 2009.


This change to Rule 40.2 will apply immediately and effectively means that Rule 40.2 will not take effect before the new edition of the Racing Rules of Sailing (2009-2012) will be published.

ISAF continues to work on safety improvements and will publish further information about safety issues in January 2006 on http://www.sailing.org.
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Its been along time coming since this was announced. does anyoneone know if this is a done deal? I have not heard anything about it for a very long time.

How many people are racing on non quick release systems still?

I haven't found it in the 2009-2012 version, so i just bought a new harness, non quick release,let me know if you find it.

Darryn
Mozzie
1782

In the 2009 rules book rule 40 only talk about flotation devices. The only mention of a trapeze harness in the whole book is in rule 43.1 where is is specified it cannot weight more than 2kg. Nothing about quick release anywhere I can find.

Quick release can mean accidental release too.... this is the debate that has been going on with ISAF.
Myself and quiet a few other sailors I know have had these units fail or release, resulting in man overboard, boat breakages and sometimes complete seperation from the boat. I will never use a quick release system again. The risk they pose to sailors far outweights the benifits. i believe a good knife is more important. Strap one on the underside of your rear beam and one on your harness.

The way that I heard it go down was that the traditional hook/dogbone IS considered a quick release.

We've had to address this issue with the new Zhik harness.

The situation on quick release is actually a LOT more confusing than you think.



The new ISAF rule on quick release was abandoned and there was talk of it coming back in 2009....but that has not happened.

There is no new rule that says you must have quick release.



There is, however, a new section in the ISAF offshore special regulations (that is actually for inshore regattas). It is up to the specific regatta officials to invoke this new special regulation, which says you must have a paddle, a knife, and a harness that has quick release that is to a new ISO standard.



Trouble is this new ISO standard for the quick release is not in final form yet!



We have also spoken to a few national yachting federations, and they have not adopted this new special regulation in any case. Chances are that nobody will.

It is not a rule, it is a choice, ... so it is much easier to not take on something so ill-specified.



When the new ISO standard for quick release is finalised only then can manufacturers design to it. There also needs to be official test houses set up to test for it. This will all take quite a bit of time....the corrosion test in the standard takes 3 months for example... and then you still have to make it, ship it, distribute it, sell it...we are talking a year at least...then maybe two years before regatta officials will think it is fair for all the sailors to have new trapeze harnesses.



At the moment there is NO quick release system on the market that is certified to this new ISO standard.

One thing I can definitely say. As soon as Zhik has something to design towards, such as a new quick release standard, we will do so. Meanwhile, I think you are safe from any new rules for quite some time. It will take the regatta world a while before it can enforce the whole fleet to comply with a new standard.