420 winged rudder

Originally posted by JimC

   Wow, it is just as well the weather is S*** today, else I'd have wasted my time indoors when I could have been outside. But no, instead I spent the time looking through all the rule books trying to find the bits where it says that winter handicap events are 'fun' and that the RRS no longer apply. Nor, despite a very close search of the SIs, could I find it written anywhere that you could 'run what you brung' - in other words, class legal applies to other people. Now there are historical precedents for what happened that most of us can remember, when a front running Merlin Rocket used sails that were not legal (but only on a technicality) and ended up having to retire from a series that they'd (on paper and on the water) apparently won.
The worry now is that the events at QM could, if not handled well, turn out to be an even more problematic situation that will have far wider implications.

Firstly, the 420s. As well as sporting clearly illegal 'appendages', did the foils comform to the rules in all other ways, or were they profiled - which is a clear breach of the Class Rules. Now take this one stage further, what else on the boat contravened the Class Rules? 

Were the sailors competing in these boats from one of the RYA Squads (let's face it, many of the 420 sailors are!) because then the question ought to be asked of the Squad leader if he intends condoning such actions. Is this really what the RYA is teaching our next generation of sailors?

The comments about the RS800 are even more worrying, as this string now contains supportive comments from an RS source that infers that their actions are okay. Now this surprised me, for this gives a strong message that RS as a supplier of 'one design' boats is now condoning sailors signing on with boats that are patently outside of the class rules. As one who hears a lot of protests, a defense of "it's okay, we're RS and that means we can do this"  wouldn't get very far.
(it is worth remembering that RS are not just a major boat builder, but are the providers of dinghies with full international status; moreover, just recently they made a strong and credible bid to be a supplier of boats to the Olympics. That ought to place upon them a certain degree of responsibility but that seems to have been put to one side. So is it now official RS policy that 'do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law"?) 

He may upset a few, but GRF keeps hitting the nail right on the head when he says that "you couldn't make this up" because you couldn't. Between one of the UKs leading edge boat builders sending people off to sail in an event, with (if the previous strings on here are to be believed) official blessing and some 420 sailors (who made the foils....someone must have) it seems that the rules simply don't matter. What this says about the state of the sport today, well, I think we can all work that out but again, I refer you back to many of GRFs comments. When self interest overtakes the wider requiremensts of the sport, there can't be much left worth caring about!

D