F18 Rules Fact Sheet: Illegal Spinnakers

As minutes are not still published I guess is time to go to the details on my recent posts.

Timeline
2010:
– Backes and Jarlegan won at Erquy with main sail of two cloths and psa patch
– I’m told that SI sails was warned that those sails were illegal on those two items above.
– No protest was issued at Erquy

2011 Worlds
– Accusations on Carbon were issued one day before the event at the WC meeting.
– In the middle of the event a request for info was filled on SI sails. That request ended on an official protest regarding the use of cloth not on the approved list. PSA is a polyester sticky cloth similar to window material that was used on the corners of the sails as reinforcement.
More details here:catsailingnews.blogspot.com/2011/08/f18-info-on-si-sails-issue.html

As a firecback Udin reviewed the rules and found out that all spis were illegal:
April 2010 Published Rules and valid at the 2011 Worlds:
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G.5.2 CONSTRUCTION
(a) The construction shall be: soft sail, single ply sail.
(b) Primary and secondary reinforcement is permitted at the sail corners
and the recovery points, and have to comply with the Sailcloth Appendix.

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You go to the Sailcloth Appendix (at the end of the Rules Doc link above) and you will find this text:

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Spinnaker Reinforcements
Any sail cloth on the spinnaker list, according to ERS.

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In short in the Spinnaker cloth list there is no Dacron to be found.
Dacron is a must for making spinnakers work or not breaking apart, and is used as standard reinforcement by all builders.

Previous rules had the following text: “any woven polyester“.for reinforcements.

So as all spinnakers on the Class are made with Dacron reinforcement all spis were illegal on hard written rules at 2011 Worlds. By error, oblivion or whichever reason you may want to assign.

This is a fact confirmed by last 26 Nov minutes:
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• Class rules clarification (under article A.8) :
Add in spinnaker reinforcement cloth list the wording dropped
any woven polyester”.
Clarification Passed unanimously with immediate action.

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So now all Spins are legal again.
Is important to note again that  “any woven polyester” was found in previous rules but not on April 2010 rules valid at the 2011 Worlds.

So you will read now several excuses and positions, but the fact and reality is only one:
All spins were illegal and a ‘clarification’ was issued to revert that situation. 

What was my concern and others on this point?:
If you kill by the rules you die by the rules, If someone would have protest all spins at the 2011 Worlds the entire fleet would have been banned from the event.
Basically the Class rightly banned A (si sails) for having cloth not on the list but not B (all spinnakers made with reinforcement cloth not on the list)

These series of facts are to show and inform the sailors NOT specific rule points, that as I proved these days are right now quite irrelevant like the two cloth restriction, but how the class is managing the rules making procedures,
publications and further amendments, clarifications, patches etc following a path of continuous mess that will be impossible to manage int he future. Reacting  to which ever loophole a builder can use.
How come we can have a published rule with all spis being illegal? 
I already proposed an internal Challenging Procedure for future rules/clarifications/amendments.

More patches and specific rules will lead to more loopholes , more clarifications and the path for more
issues like the ones that occurred at past Worlds.

The Class needs to calm down and review current rules and adapt them for the next 2 years at least….?
.Next:  Two Cloths issue.