Part 4 - OTHER REQUIREMENTS WHEN RACING

A boat shall use only the equipment on board at her preparatory signal.

No person on board shall intentionally leave, except when ill or injured, or to help a person or vessel in danger, or to swim. A person leaving the boat by accident or to swim shall be back in contact with the boat before the crew resumes sailing the boat to the next mark.

Competitors shall use no device designed to position their bodies outboard, other than hiking straps and stiffeners worn under the thighs.

When lifelines are required by the class rules or any other rule, competitors shall not position any part of their torsos outside them, except briefly to perform a necessary task. However, on boats equipped with upper and lower lifelines, competitors sitting facing outboard with their waist inside the lower lifeline may have the upper part of their body outside the upper lifeline. Unless a class rule or any other rule specifies a maximum deflection, lifelines shall be taut. If the class rules do not specify the material or minimum diameter of lifelines, they shall comply with the corresponding specifications in the World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations.

(a) Competitors shall not wear or carry clothing or equipment for the purpose of increasing their weight. (b) Furthermore, a competitor’s clothing and equipment shall not weigh more than 8 kilograms, excluding a crew harness (as defined in The Equipment Rules of Sailing) and clothing (including footwear) worn only below the knee. Class rules or the notice of race may specify a lower weight or a higher weight up to 10 kilograms. Class rules may include footwear and other clothing worn below the knee within that weight. A crew harness shall have positive buoyancy in fresh water and shall not weigh more than 2 kilograms, except that class rules may specify a higher weight up to 4 kilograms. Weights shall be determined as required by Appendix H. (c) A crew harness shall allow the competitor, at any time, to easily disconnect the harness from the trapeze or attachment to the boat.

Rules 50.1(b) and 50.1(c) do not apply to boats required to be equipped with lifelines.

When headsails or spinnakers are being changed, a replacing sail may be fully set and trimmed before the replaced sail is lowered. However, only one mainsail and, except when changing, only one spinnaker shall be carried set at a time.

Only one spinnaker pole or whisker pole shall be used at a time except when gybing. When in use, it shall be attached to the foremost mast spar (as defined in The Equipment Rules of Sailing).

No sail shall be sheeted over or through any device that exerts outward pressure on a sheet or clew of a sail at a point from which, with the boat upright, a vertical line would fall outside the hull or deck, except: (a) a headsail clew may be connected (as defined in The Equipment Rules of Sailing) to a whisker pole, provided that a spinnaker is not set; (b) any sail may be sheeted to or led above a boom that is regularly used for a sail and is permanently attached to the mast from which the head of the sail is set; (c) a headsail may be sheeted to its own boom that requires no adjustment when tacking; and (d) the boom of a sail may be sheeted to a bumkin.

For the purposes of rules 54 and 55 and Appendix G, the definitions of ‘headsail’ and ‘spinnaker’ in The Equipment Rules of Sailing shall be used.

When so equipped, a boat shall sound fog signals and show lights as required by the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (IRPCAS) or applicable government rules.

A boat shall comply with rule 10, Traffic Separation Schemes, of the IRPCAS.

When a rule requires a boat to be equipped with an Automatic Identification System transponder or any other tracking device, it shall not be turned off or its effectiveness intentionally reduced.