The trouble with your argument is that you are very correct.

But I feel miss the point about high performance, or shall we say fast, exciting and a lot of fun for the best sailors to sail.

The majority of people may well sail mid range performance boats, or even in the case of the laser and Star low performance boats, I expect that it is true of a lot of sports that the majority of participants partake on a relatively low performance basis, be it in the equipment they use or the times they finish in.

But in the case of the top end of the sport ie Olympics there is no need to sail boats for the masses, boats can be high performance and challenging to sail for the elite sailors.

They can also be aspiring to future sailors around the world, I cant and never will perform stunts on my windsurfer, snow board etc but I still aspire to the pro’s that do these tricks, its what makes those sports exciting and encourage me to go and play.

That is what the boats we show case our sport should do – aspire young ad old, male and female to our sport. For that there must be at least a few that look like they challenge the best sailors in the world, otherwise it just looks dull.

For those of us who already sail we dont need to be told that sailing is loads of fun regardless of what we are sailing in.

I think the treatment Paige Railey got when she was vilified on some sites for getting penalised for rule 42 in 2206 was completely over the top.

Just look at the rule its huge and completely dependent on the view of the judges. Do they spot everybody transgressing and do they hold the same opinion of what breaks the rule? Remember there’s no hawk-eye technology available for this stuff either!

Why not simply allow kinetics over say 6 knots and only start this level racing over 6 knots, oh I forgot that would probably mean not much racing at the Olympics, so it looks like we’re going to end up with Andy’s limitless 720 turns…

If you are as open and reasonable as you make out to be, how about having a good look at what you are doing and the message you are sending? How do most people read it and use it? What good do you expect to come of it in the hands of ISAF and compadres?
I am a bigot and admit it, I think you are too but you dont admit it yet.

I’ll drop this now. No need to let it become more ugly.

And so far this year I’ve done a states, nationals and worlds and won two of them. How ’bout you?

And yes, Tornadoes are fun (brilliant fun) but they are not “the” fun boats in the Games. The reason that vastly more people sail Lasers and Stars than Tornadoes is because they find Lasers and Stars are lots of fun to sail.

Implying that 470s, Stars, Lasers etc are not fun is just alienating the big number of sailors who CHOOSE to sail them, isn’t it? How does that help the cause of getting cats back?

Tornado’s come to mind….oh never mind – US Sailing and Charlie Cook got rid of the pesky fun boats to sail in the Olympics….

Of course, this is just as true of burglary and mugging as it is of kinetics.

What really amazes me is the length of the rule and its interpretations. Anything that complex will not be taken seriously unless an umpire blows a whistle. It would be better if we had a rule that competitors could and would enforce. No kinetics of any kind, not even roll tacking, would be my choice.

Opening up R42 in a Laser, for example, would mean that in light winds we’d just stand on the bow, hanging onto the mast, and roll the boat from side to side. In glassy conditions you’d just pump straight upwind. That’s not a natural act, nor seamanlike, and it looks bloody stupid. In a club or class event the older or less fit sailors who could not rock continually would not be able to finish in a reasonable time limit, and therefore would have no reason to compete. And if you say “let it all go at Olymypic level” where do you draw the line between a non-pumping eventg and the others? My district title gets top Olympians preparing for the Games, my local regattas are ISAF ranking events, so do we just destroy the racing for 180 sailors to allow 20 Olympians to pump?

Yes, fitness is something that should be rewarded, but not to a disproportionate amount. And in my experience pumping actually increases the effect that varying winds have on results – in some conditions the pumper has a vast advantage, in others very little. You can almost look at a forecast and foresee your result, to a much greater extent than in classes that restrict pumping.

Does pumpiing do the RSX harm? According to some Olympic medallists and to the numbers of competitive windsurfers, pumping has done windsurfing enormous harm. The gap between the full-time front runners and the good amateurs is so huge -vastly wider than in say dinghies or cats – that it’s embarrassing to race the top sailors, and club and class racing in boards is a shadow of its former self. You can’t get a good start and have a close race upwind in light air against the top guys like you can in say Lasers, they just pump straight away and leave you choking in turbulence.

The other two recent classes in course-racing boards are the Formula, which was designed so that pumping is not such a big issue, and the newer Kona which bans pumping. So the evidence is that even the windsurfers generally DON’T want unrestricted pumping. The “success” of a pumping class in a dwindling area of a dwindling sport is not good evidence for pumping!

Finally, the law of unintended consequences certainly applies. I was on the national team when pumping was allowed for boards. Even the world’s best pros (Bjorn etc) did not pump then as sailors do now, so no one really realised the corrosive effect that it would have on hte sport when taken to its current levels.

A material piece of evidence, I think, is the Mistral IMCO 7.4 sail. I understand that its design was affected by the need to be efficient for pumping. As a result, some of us think it’s inferior in strong-wind handling to older and larger sails. So we lose in light winds because racing is so much about pumping, and we lose in strong winds because the sail is less efficient.

I run a windsurfer class that allows downwind pumping in the main event, and unrestricted pumping in others. It can work, but it DOES have significant minuses and would have many more in dinghies.

And we may not even need an IJ to stop pumping – why not give rescue boat and RC crews at titles fairly cheap cameras to point at people? If someone blew a whistle at you while pointing a video, you’d either stop pumping and do a 720 or else have the opportunity to present a good case (with video evidence) in a protest room. If you felt you were not pumping and knew you’d been videoed you’d be confident in the room.

I’m actually preparing a draft NoR and class rules at the moment with this provision in; comments welcomed.

C.8 Rules
C.8.1 RRS 42.3 is changed as follows:
Add to RRS 42.3:
h) A boat’s crew may pump the mainsail repeatedly to release one or more
battens..
i) A boat may be sculled before the start if the sculling does not propel the
boat.

The racing rules state that a crew shall only propel a boat using the action of wind and water on the boat and other acts of seamanship – or words to that effect.

What ever kinetics are applied to a boat will only ever use action of wind and water on a boat, they are natural actions on a boat and certainly come under acts of seamanship.

Rule 42 contradicts all of these things, allow it all any thing goes at least at olympic level

Dosnt do the rsx any harm…….

“Provided the boat’s course is above close-hauled and she clearly changes direction towards a close-hauled course, repeated forceful movements of the helm are permitted, even if the boat gains speed. She may turn to a close-hauled course on either tack.” Rule 42 Interpretation

If Andy is right in saying that a 49er helmsman would only scull in order to avoid going head to wind (and they were doing that while above close-hauled) then they should not have been penalized under Rule 42.

I don’t know about 49ers but in some dinghy classes there is a temptation to scull the boat towards and away from HTW while waiting to start. Sculling towards HTW is illegal under the Rule 42 Interpretations. There is no need for the judge to believe that sculling would cause forward propulsion of the 49er for him to impose a penalty.

I know there’s a desire to curb air rowing but a high proportion of entry fees for national & international events goes towards travel & accommodation for (barely competent) judges so maybe we should go back to competitors protesting.