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I am sure any moveable ballast is forbidden by the rules. this includes sails, anchors, personal gear, water(salt or fresh) or anything else except crew and the clothes they are wearing.

Canting keelers and water ballasted boats which move their water and volvo boats which stack sails operate under an exception to the rules which expressly permits these things with some terms and conditions.

 

If you use a sail then take it down and stow it below deck then you may chose to stow it on the windward side. what you may not do is then after a tack move that sail to the new windward side. Same with fresh water. Some class rules and sailing instructions allow limited exceptions.

 

tacking and stacking gear on deck or below is cheating. Simple.

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"51 MOVABLE BALLAST

All movable ballast, including sails that are not set, shall be properly stowed. Water, dead weight or ballast shall not be moved for the

purpose of changing trim or stability. Floorboards, bulkheads, doors,

stairs and water tanks shall be left in place and all cabin fixtures kept on board. However, bilge water may be bailed out."

 

Looks like you can't keep sails on the rail they must be properly stowed. Does not say you can't move them around downstairs that only applies to Water, dead weight or ballast

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Guest Rocket

So in changeable conditions what is improper about stowing the most likely next change on the weather rail?

 

To put it to leeward would be improper...

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So us moving the raft from side to side to make sure it's always on top of 'the pile' would be a naughty??

 

Don't do it that much and it's only the raft. We only have to do it in big waves where everything seems to end up burying it quite quick if it's to leward. It sits on the seats and leans on the lee cloths so only really moves 2-2.5ft max off centreline and quite low in the boat.

 

It's a valise one so can't live outside, as I understand it. If it stays on the floor it will get stomped on fast. We didn't think that was particularly safe for the raft or our ankles.

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Ha Knotty I'd stop digging as thats becoming an impressive hole

From memory your life raft must be stowed securely in a dedicated position with the tether fixed to a strong point knot floating around the salon

I'm sure someone can come up with the correct wording.

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That's if it's a more permanent thing isn't it? For Simrad (the only time it's aboard while racing usually, I do take it on my solo wanders sometimes) it's a case of dingy or raft as an Cat 4 addition rather than full on Cat 3, or that's how we read it.

 

We have no place that we can stick it so it'll be 'permanent' yet actually usable if required. Basically it's a pain in the arse and we'd far prefer to leave it at home. To be honest we could and do think we could get away with it.... but as we don't do cheating we don't.

 

We think what we do is the best mix of complying with the rules, making sure the gear is actually at hand for use if required and leaves the boat safer for the crew to work it.

 

I would be very interested to know just what the story is though. Someone got any clues?

 

Hey, still waiting for someone to protest my kayak, how about they do a double whammy and chuck the non-fixed liferaft in at the same time. At least we'd know for sure then... for both. The offer to pay the protest fee and protest room rumbos is still on the table. If you're keen just say when and I'll make sure both are aboard.

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Deadweight is usually any item that is not attached to the boat - so that would include sails, baked beans, old socks, and rum bottles.

 

Ok so it can be moved but not for the pupose of improving trim or righting moment?

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I've been waiting for someone to post the actual rules.

 

In the UK all Royal Ocean Racing Club boats had to have a large sticker (almost as big as a poster) showing and stating stacking gear on the windward side was illegal. Made it fairly clear you couldn't stack everything on the high side on each tack - all gear must be "correctly stowed" in the seamanship sense.

 

Didn't say anything about "correctly stowing" everything on one side if it was a one gybe race like the Coastal in a Westerly...

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I'm intrigued too.

 

As Rocket suggested, how long is too long to have the next headsail (or the previous headsail, if you have a kite/gennaker up) in the "ready" position on the side deck?

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I think it is a very grey area, race boats are often changing the order their sails are stowed to get the next sail ontop and ready, thats moving sails too. anyone who has been offshore knows that pretty much every watch change you have to sponge the bilges, you simply can not do this with sails and other gear lying over the leward floorboards so they get stacked out of the way to windward, do you then move them back to leward knowing that you will have to do that agin in a few hours, i dont thnk so.

I certanly would not call movng sails around down stars as cheatng and also would say that having 1 or 2 of the next sails you are gong to use or a backup kite on deck also obviously on the high side as not cheating either. as I say its a grey area, but if you leave all your sails and gear in a pile to leward in the puddles of water and making it hard to get around the boat then thats just not right.

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Guest Dry Reach

Sails "on Deck", and the weight of them these days, is not the big issue when it comes to moving "objects" to benefit Righting moment!

 

The cheats "at club level and offshore level", where there is a lot more "stuff" to move around down stairs (an less policing of the rules) are the problem.

 

The pro's are a lot cleaner than the club racer IMHO

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I am sure that I recall some pro sailors banned in europe a few years ago specifically for re-stowing sails downstairs. i can't find any reference to this in the internet and I think it was mid-nineties before the internet was available to mere mortals. I am sure the rule has changed slightly since then but i believe that it was changed to clarify that moving sails is specifically cheating.

 

from this site:

 

http://www.rulesmaster.com/pages/2009-2012%20Rules

"Rule 51: Movable Ballast: makes it absolutely clear that sails not set are considered movable ballast, and must be properly stowed. It’s clear that the intention is to ensure that sails not set are not moved for the purpose of changing trim or stability. The new rule does specifically allow you to bail out bilge water."

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In a normal Coastal Classic SW we start the race with the stbd water tank empty and everyone's gear behind a lee cloth to port. It's just plain common sense, not cheating.

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Haven't got a lot of choice with the water so sometimes just dump it and keep water in bottles. Tell me that's cheating. And hands up who hasn't had the other lee cloth set up to re-sort stuff as you're looking for something. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The advantage of a couple of sleeping bags and a bottle of rum probably wont get us past G3.

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Guest Dry Reach

Before the 10 min gun you can move as much "moveable ballast" as you like!, (its called stowing away gear) But after that it has to stay there! (excepting crew)

 

Broke mariner. it is not common sense to load up the port side on a long "port Tack, reach , run " race. Especially if the the breeze changes and you end up on starboard track for most of the race.!

 

thats dumb!... unless of course you move it all to starboard!... then that is cheating! (moving ballast during the race)

 

i think it would be hard not to be tempted to move it all back. So if people are loading one side up and have been doing this (as Broke mariner has eluded). then we should look at how much time their "GPS track / log" has shown them on starboard tack during the CC and see if there is a speed difference? or not (see if the ballast is moved)

 

Cheating happens locally all the time because nobody polices it!

 

the rules are clear and i wonder how canting keels are not termed "moveable ballast"? and thus cant be moved post the 10 min gun.

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Nah, As I said we don't move the water, we dump it. What would really be dumb would be to look at a forecast and not do it. I'm hardly talking about repacking the spaghetti tins and the anchor after every tack, we all know that's cheating. Obviously if the race looks like lots of work on both boards its different. I'm actually not that dumb. And I bet your red cotton socks that more than 50% have a little dabble. It's all supposed to come out in the wash with PHRF anyway. The fact that it can never be policed and basically, like so many other things in yachting, motoring for instance, we rely on the integrity of our competitors. If people are blatantly restacking huge amounts of ballast then they probably don't feel real good about themselves.

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