Measurement cert and handicap racing.

1.3 All boats will be required to sail according to their respective class rules

Although that's an extract from just one NoR.

'I've never seen a club or event other than class events asking to see measurement certificates'

Originally posted by JimC RRS 78 is the relevant bit of the rules. There are people who have a (to me bizarre) theory that it switches off in a handicap race. Its not something that's going to be settled in a forum flaming match, it needs to go officially to the RYA rules folk, but I think its a can of worms no-one fancies opening just in case something ugly crawls out.

Originally posted by E.J. "1.3 All boats will be required to sail according to their respective class rules"   There must be some things that dont tranfer from class rules to handicap. In my class events pumping is allowed at 10knts, but I think it would be unfair if I did this in handicap.   This line of thought makes it difficult for an event organiser to pick out what is to be followed from the class rules such as; hull and sail construction, and what is not.

I think they dealt with the propulsion issue?

But there are other issues, for instance the RS200 has the option of a pole to square-run with the kite, it is described in the class rules and its length limited but banned in class events. In an RS800, the crew may not play the mainsheet upwind in class events, suddenly you have to unscramble class rules from SI's for class events.

I would say the majority of PY sailors nationally are not compliant with class rules, because they are not members of their CA. That may seem like a bad thing, but the system works. The fact that a lot of club racers who want minimal involvement in the class are not dominating the voting means that those who are involved can get on and run the high level stuff to suit the high level sailors. Maybe some classes don't have the balance right, but on the whole, the current state of affairs works ok on the water and it's only forum lawyers who have an issue with it.

For most people, the point of sticking to class rules in PY racing is to get a PY easily, with some credibility behind it. That has been damaged by the esteemed PY committee erasing the numbers for a great number of classes and too much mucking about with the other numbers.