The current Racing Rules of Sailing run to 31 December 2020 and the next edition will become effective in the middle of most of Australia’s sailing season.

Across the post Christmas period there will be some events that begin in 2020 and finish in early 2021. These are typically national championship events for off the beach boat classes which begin after Christmas and finish just after New Year’s Day. In these cases, the race documents may stipulate that the 2020 version of the RRS apply for the entire event. Race officials working with the organising authority and race committee will simply have to take care to ensure the notice of race and sailing instructions properly state which rules are in play for those events that straddle the change-over date.

Clubs producing season handbooks will also have to ensure that the races and regattas starting after January 2021 are referring to the 2021 version.

The interesting back story to this is how COVID-19 may have interfered. The regulations of World Sailing state that the RRS would be published after each Olympics. The Olympics have been rescheduled to 2021 which means the current RRS could have extended another year to December 2021. The dilemma was either a practical approach to change the current regulations or run with a five-year RRS cycle. Fortunately, sensible thinking has prevailed, and World Sailing are working to changing the regulations and will disconnect the RRS cycle from the Olympics.

The Racing Rules of Sailing are available for download at https://www.sailingresources.org.au/class-assoc/racing-rules/.

By Glen Stanaway https://www.sailing.org.au/about/ourstaff/.