Wiki Sail by GRF

I think it is a sensible rule for the vast majority of classes, but still don't see why it is a RRS rather than class rule. Carbon, aero web sails, t-foils and mahogany are expensive, but it is up to individual classes to decide whether the costs are worth the benefit. An ISAF rule banning carbon would, rightly, be seen as nanny state. Which isn't to say that class rules banning exotics are wrong, merely that ISAF rules doing so are.

Originally posted by fab100 In your world, it would clearly be skilful guile to get away with tying buckets to the bottom of other peoples' boats too. So you carry on aspiring to be Dick Dastardly, so busy plotting ways to guarantee success you forget the idea is to get over the line first by fair means, not foul.

In my world it's not about tying buckets to other peoples boat (FOM excepted)it's about making sure you don't have a 'bucket' on your own boat. If by not having that 'bucket' by spotting something or other and adding/removing it your own progress is improved temporarily (it won't be long before other competitors spot what you've done) then the world moves on, it's called life, human progress according to your logic F1 would still be racing blower Bentleys round Brookland.
You know what, the first time I spotted a port end favoured line and started there I actually felt guilty, coming innocently from a different type of racing, I actually felt it was cheating, being that much closer to the first mark than everyone else. Then I heard there were entire books dedicated to ways you can cheat fairly called sailing tactics.

Originally posted by fab100 Originally posted by tgruitt Originally posted by fab100 ...and well before that - before even Mark Spitz in the dodgy 'tache and budgie smuggler days You do know Mark made that bit up about his 'tache? Did he claim it was speed benefit? Did n't even know that

Yep, his answer to the question does your tashe slow you down. "No, as a matter of fact, it deflects water away from my mouth, allows my rear end to rise and make me bullet-shaped in the water, and that's what had allowed me to swim so great."

Originally posted by L123456 Some people will do anything to win, I was told that a well know windsurfer once spread sun tan lotion on the deck of a rivals board ... It all depends what you are prepared to do.

I don't know about the sun tan lotion thing, could be, it wouldn't do that much harm if the sailor were any good unless the entire deck were drenched in the stuff.

But over the years I've heard testament and witnessed lots of blatant cheating at Olympic level, including a silver medallist using three sets of tuned battens to switch according to condition in a very batten sensitive OD fleet, A pair and one of whom still participates coaching today, who had their centreboards drilled and two carbon tube rods inserted vertically, and a Gold medallist who's board we inspected after a Europeans and was found to have re-enforcing mylar strips backing the supplied flushing strips, and extra packing around the CB case, all beneficial mods that would be good for a couple of extra board lengths upwind in an average beat.

I've never heard of uk sailors doing this in international competition, probably because no-one told them how, or what difference it might make, who knows, but then is it any difference to a friendly interdepartmental one design race in supplied lead mines where on team go down the week before select their boat and have the bottom scrubbed then go and have a little race all on their own out front of all the rest?

Cheating goes on all the time at every level. It's part of sailings rich tapestry, the key is to be able to spot if they are cheating and how, then the Elvstrom card is played mentally. Deliberately selecting a bandit boat is cheating, building a bandit is also cheating, worse, it is profiting by the character flaws of others, we each live by our own rules of what's right and wrong at the end of the day.

As I said in the beginning my naive mind couldn't square the circle of deliberately setting out to run a shorter race than the next man, but essentially that is the key to being regarded as a good sailor.

Can't wait to hear the IGEMs on this old chestnut