The final (hopefully) version of the ballot to sort out the shambles of the last effort has finally gone out to national registrars for final approval. Assuming that there are no last minute glitches, it will be released for distribution to members on Sunday night.
I am sorry it has taken a long time coming. Despite what some profess to believe the committee has no particular axe to grind about the specific technical aspects of the rule. As far as we are concerned the trick is to produce a rule that will be reasonably satidfactory to the unlkely bunch of whinging Poms, scobiferous Aussies, bolshie Kiwis, red-necked Yanks, drunken Swedes, conspiracy-obsessed Italians, humorless Germans, obstinate Pollacks, etc who make up the Footy Class!
We obviously cannot afford to go off at half cock again, so we have - after much heart searching - given a simple option: stay as you are or remove all rig restrictions from Rule C. As far as we can see, this represents what most people are doing anyway, either by way of sailing instructions or on the nod.
Please note that in trying to make sense of the last ballot we took legal advice that, had we been paying for it, would undoubtedly have been extremely expensive. The same rules as those actually applied last time will be used - i.e. a majority of the votes actually cast. Abstentions DO NOT count as votes against.
I must state for the record that the same source of legal advice proposes that we should include a motion to make this plain in the current ballot. We have decided not to do this. This ballot is a corrective response to what went wrong with the last one. I (and I believe others) consider that the Charter needs quite a lot doing to it to make it farer and more transparent. This should be done soon, but at relative leisure and after due oublic debate. Further, it should be done as a complete package. Accordingly we believe that any Charter changes are best deferred to be the next clean-up operation once the dust has settled on rigs.
I’m glad you didn’t get around to us “shy, modest Canadians”…
Incidentally, exactly how are we to do any voting on this matter?
Do we ‘vote’ using the ballot as shown here in the forum? Or is there supposed to be a communication from our National Registrar?. I did not recieve any Ballot for the last vote that concerned batteries etc., and the voting closed before I realized nothing was coming. Not that I was unhappy with the outcome, but… What is the actual voting mechanism?
Angus - Red-necked Yanks is contradiction, in the US you are either one or the other or some alternate regional slang description. In some ways its like lumping Kiwis and Roos together because they are both english speakers in the southern hemisphere.
There are terribly clear distinctions between Americans and Englishmen. Englishmen walk on the ‘pavement’,to stay out of the way of the ‘motorcars’, while if an American tried it, he would be run over by an ‘automobile’.
You see? Nothing could be simpler!
Angus, I am afraid Bill H. has been behaving badly over there to give you such an impression of Americans.
And Rod, wether you are on the “pavement” or not, in England you are likely to get run over by an “automobile” anyway 'cause the Brits don’t know which side of the road to drive on!
Now, now, now, Gentlemen, let cool calm logic prevail!!!
If you were driving a ‘coach and four’ in the ‘good old days’, you would have your whip in your right hand, and you would sit at the right-hand end of the coachman’s seat, so you would not accidentally ‘whip’ one of the passengers behind you. And so that you would have a better ‘eye’ for the on-coming coaches, you would drive logically on the left side of the road (as God intended). I understand that in North America, in the early days, everyone drove, quite properly, on the left. I don’t know why North Americans chose to be illogical, but at some time they did, as did Canada, although much later, sometime in the 20th Century I believe. We, of course, had the excuse that we had to follow American practice (given our long, and until recently, undefended, border).
As we say in Canada, “As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances”.
All way off the Footy topic, of course, but on which gunwale of the boat do you sit on, while on the preferred tack?
Rod - Be real, you Canadiens changed over to our way of driving because your countrymen and women are practical. You would still be driving the British way if you didn’t want to drive cars.
I’ve seen enough BBC movies and mini-series to form the impression that the upper classes would be the ones being driven about in open coaches by servants and could be inadvertently whipped. The more common folks seem to ride around in lower quality covered vehicles. How undemocratic to continue a driving practice that perpetuates such class snobbery. If nothing else the mass produced car empowered people of all stripes to mobility and the prosperity that built the middle class in this country. It is unfortunate that in the last part of the last century and the early years of this one that the US has experienced such a severe stratification of wealth and its greatest concentration in only 2% of our population, we are beginning to look more like those BBC programs. Perhaps we’ll switch over to the left soon as well.
But, back on topic - Vote YES to rig choice! You’ll be glad you did!
Ah, the 'spirit of ‘76’!
(For the info of those in the rest of the world who may not have heard of our cross-border frictions, we are still dealing with the War of 1812. In a very friendly way, of course.)
One aspect of the possible rig change that I have not seen considered so far is the number of rigs that a competitor could use during a single regatta. My chief concern is the inevitable trend towards someone having 10-20 different rigs, each designed by an expensive sailmaker, and each one rated for a very narrow band of wind speed. That is the way to another “money wins” sailboat class.
Is it intended that the “two designated rigs per regatta” rule will still be in effect?
Rod - from my considerable experience of the (full-size) IOR before restrictions of numbers of sails, I came to the conclusion that really large sail wardrobes were the mst exoensive way there was of coming last.
Further, the existing rule does nothong to cut number of sails. You still need a sail optimised for 2 knots, 3 knots etc windspeed. At the same time very few people have realised that each of these ‘tp’ rigs should have a range of different 305 mm rigs giving different cross-over points between A and B rigs.
Mercifully, this type of arrangement comes within the strictures of paragraph 1 above.
Angus,
They burned Toronto first! Most of the rest of Canada wishes it had stayed… There’s a joke “First Prize–One week in Toronto—Second Prize–Two weeks in Toronto” Ah, we shouldn’t be cruel!!!
(It’s really the " Burned Black House" only they white-washed it.)
