The ‘whisker pole’ issue has been addressed by amendments to the IRC rule and a prescription permitting headsails in Australia to be poled out to windward.

Responding to boat owner reactions, Australian Sailing, the CYCA and RORC have worked hard on a solution to provide fleets the ability to pole out headsails to windward without taking a hit on their rating. Boat owners made it clear that in heavy weather a pole may be used to set a headsail to windward when it is unsafe or undesirable to set a spinnaker; it’s a matter of seamanship not rating.

Whisker Poles: The RORC issued an amendment to the IRC rule enabling national prescriptions to change the requirement to declare poled out headsails. Australian Sailing has issued a prescription exonerating boats from this declaration if they are using a spar to pole out a headsail to windward. The full wording of the amended IRC rules and Australian Sailing prescription are available on each website.

Race committees are also reminded that Australian Sailing prescriptions to the IRC rule are relevant to their event and available online. These other prescriptions to the IRC rule which address crew weight and spinnakers can be summarised as:

Crew weight: During a regatta run on consecutive days, including any lay days, the crew shall remain the same and be on board for all races. Exceptionally, crew may be replaced with the permission of the Race Committee.

Spinnakers: Races requiring Category 1, Category 2 or Category 3 Special Regulations compliance, a boat may carry one more spinnaker than shown on her current IRC certificate, of area not greater than rated SPA, without an increase in rating. Any such prescription shall be referenced in a Notice of Race.

Crews can easily forget that these prescriptions are there, and race committees should make use of race documents and the event’s official notice board to make sure communications are effective.

Australian Sailing’s Prescriptions for IRC are at https://www.sailingresources.org.au/class-assoc/racing-rules/
The amended IRC rule can be found under Notices and Interpretations at https://ircrating.org/irc-rule/
Information on IRC can be found at https://www.sailingresources.org.au/ratingshome_2021_22/

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