Advertising via sail numbers? 55

Originally posted by JimC So in summary, to the best of the various competitors' knowledge they were entering with legitimate sails, .

Originally posted by r2d2 The part that is hard to understand is that the tape drive sails [snip] have since apparently been declared illegal.

Its not that hard to understand when you've heard some of the discussions that can go on about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin in some one design class rules. It seems to be very tricky framing rules about reinforcement and stuff, and that, I think is why ISAF have brought in their equipment rules of sailing which are full of standard definitions of reinforcement and so on in the hope of at least getting standard ways to describe this stuff.

I'm lucky enough not to sail in classes where its a concern.

Myself, I think if your class rules allow 3DL sails and yet ban rather cheaper forms of construction then its probably a sign that you've gone badly wrong somewhere and need to sit down and have a complete rethink.

Actually I think things only really fired up when the UKFA issued their statement saying the the Aeroweb Tape Drive sails were illegal. It was inevitable that things were going to heat up if a boat wins an event with sails that the class association said were illegal. If you take a peak at their forum it stills seem people in the association think they are illegal.

Originally posted by 2547 Good detail. Your sails were measured and you are 100% above board.  Sounds like you are saying the uk fireball statement is incorrect and inappropriate.  Were the winners sails measured?

Please don’t anyone put words in my mouth about the UKFA statement. I’m sure it was made with the best intentions and is correct to the best of their knowledge. Yes, it happens to be different to my (and others) honest interpretation of the rules but that doesn’t mean that anyone has any “explaining to do”, as someone said. 

When setting about making a sail, all a sailmaker has available to them, amateur or professional, is a copy of the rules, the same as can be downloaded by anyone who cares to look. Having studied them in considerable depth now, I do think it's fair to say that the rules are unclear and they can genuinely be interpreted in different ways. This means that one interpretation will be right, one will be wrong. Either way, we will learn and move on. I am quite prepared to be wrong and if so, I’ll make different sails for next time, as I would hope Speeds would.

I genuinely don’t know if the winners’ sails were measured or not and I’m not fussed either way. People have been doing club races, open meetings and pursuit races with unmeasured sails since before I was born and as long as they are roughly the right size and were built in good faith with the intention that they measure then I don’t have a problem. That goes for the whole fleet, from the winners to whoever finished last.

Perhaps though, times have changed and we all now have to have our sails measured for every race, without fail. Personally, I feel it would be a shame if this was the case.

Originally posted by sandgrounder Bearing in mind Mark's statement, and not wanting to offend anybody, I'd like to ask one final question on the matter under discussion.   I sail a SMOD, and now that all 3 authorised parts dealers in the UK sit in the same warehouse I am seriously considering changing class to one of the conventional dinghies, in order that I have access to a healthy choice of supplier to support my chosen sport.   As Speed Sails, with their outstanding history and heritage are one of the sail suppliers I will consider, I would like to know who they are owned by, as with any product and service in this day and age.   Can anybody please answer this question?