Changes to the Racing Rules of Sailing 2021

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Paramedic If you're 3/4 of the way through a series would you be happy if the rules changed? Doesn't that happen in every winter series every four years?

This used to be a problem in Australia, particularly for the Sydney Hobart Race, which started on Boxing Day and finished (for an unfortunate few) after New Years. We likewise conducted many National Championship series over the Christmas/New Year period..

For many years the Australian MNA, by prescription, delayed the implementation of the RRS until the middle of the new year.

Since the 2009-2012 rules, Introduction, Revision has provided that for an event beginning in the preceding year the effective date of the new rules may be postponed by the NOR or SI.

This prevents the rules changing in the middle of race.

Most clubs do NOT use this provision for their weekly (summer) series, given that there is usually a Christmas/New Year hiatus to enable keen sailors to study the new rules.

Interestingly the implementation dates for the changed rules has historically floated around a bit:

1989-92 Rules effective 1 May 1989
1997-2000 Rules effective 1 Apr 1997
2001-2004 Rules effective 1 Apr 2001
2005-2008 Rules effective 1 Jan 2005
2009-2012 and thereafter effective 1 Jan 2009, with above provision to postpone.

Cheers Jim 

Originally posted by JimC Study version of the new rules.. Includes the submissions that led to the changes.

Great, just as I was finishing my review to assess the changes.

The Introduction is a very useful read: it has a good explanation of the rules review and development process and hints on how to use the Study Version.

It particularly draws attention to the following submissions, which have resulted in numerous small changes throughout the rules and are worth reading before starting in on the rules themselves

(1) New rule 43, Exoneration, is the result of four submissions: 128-19, 14819, 153-19 and 164-19.

(2) Submission 155-19 made many changes in rules involving the notice of race and/or sailing instructions.

(3) Submission 143-18 (use of 'hull' in start and finish) led to nearly twenty consequential changes that are in Submission 154-19.

Extra hint: to avoid hopping through every mention of a submission in the rules text an comments, go to the top of the document (CTRL Up Arrow or Page Up) then search (CTRL F) for the Submission Number, but use the back arrow (<) in the search box to search upwards from the bottom ofthe document.

Edited by Brass - 07 Aug 20 at 11:25pm