As the sport has evolved, it has best served those at the advanced level. Equipment is better, but more expensive and complex, with the benefit focused on those that play hard. The Racing Rules of Sailing are also refined for elite racing, with the necessary detail then provided to the casual racer. Geoffrey Emanuel wants to stop this trend:

My proposed New Year’s resolution for racing sailors calls for a no holds barred level scrutiny of sailboat racing’s Status Quo, starting with its racing rules.

The new Racing Rules of Sailing (“RRS”) for 2025-2028 tweak a few things but in essence is the same old and tired set of rules perpetuated by an unaccountable bureaucracy that see nothing wrong with one of the biggest impediments to growing our sport.

Let’s face it, RRS is all but unintelligible to the newbie racers, let alone veterans. It’s lawyerly and wordy, almost intentionally ambiguous, and requires expert interpretation to fully understand. As a result, only a small minority of racers really understand the rules. If you accept that this is so, what’s the point of having such a complex set of RRS!

RRS is written for Olympic Sailing, not the 99.99% of the rest of the sport.

It’s long past time to produce a truly simplified set of rules for club racers. The mandate should be clear that racers must avoid collisions at all costs as no simplified rule set could possibly address every “what if” situation encountered on a race course

Protests should be limited to incidents where boats unfortunately collide and cause insured damage, as insurance companies prefer fault finding to reimburse for damages. This only works if race organizers make it crystal clear that failure to do one’s turns to exonerate a non-contact foul will not be tolerated.

This change in sailing protocol will only work if all racers accept responsibility for sportsmanlike behavior and practice humility on the race course. The return on this change in behavior will be enormous!

I submit that the vast majority of racers already are following something akin to this protocol. You know who you are that are not.

Thoughts? Send them to editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com