The change that breaks the most documents: Part 5

Part 5 covers protests, redress, hearings and appeals. It was completely rearranged and renumbered.

If you have ever written "request for redress under rule 62" into a notice of race, a jury decision or a briefing, that sentence is now wrong. Redress is rule 61.

Definitions

Finish. A boat finishes when, after her starting signal, any part of her hull crosses the finishing line from the course side. The practical effect is that a boat no longer needs to have started in order to finish. Sailing instructions may now also specify the direction in which boats cross the line.

Sail the course. A boat's core obligation is now expressed as sailing the course, and rule 28 was simplified around that idea. Several other rules were reworded to match, which is why the phrase turns up where the old book said "finish".

Obstruction. Expanded to include an area or a line that boats are prohibited from entering or crossing under a rule.

Part 3: the Race Officer's section

Rule 27.3. Before the starting signal the race committee may now also abandon using flag N, N over H, or N over A. The pre-start options used to be built around AP alone.

Rule 32. The rule keeps its name, Shortening or Abandoning After the Start, but the signalling instructions were pulled out into their own subrules:

• 32.1 lists the grounds: foul weather, insufficient wind, a missing or out of position mark, or any other reason directly affecting safety or fairness.
• 32.2 covers shortening. Flag S with two sounds, before the first boat crosses the finishing line.
• 32.3 covers abandoning. Flag N, N over H, or N over A, with three sounds.

Watch the wording of 32.1(b). The old test was whether boats would finish within the time limit. The new test is whether any boat is likely to sail the course within the time limit. Same decision in most cases, different words in your protest notes. There is a fuller walkthrough in our guide to Rule 32 abandonment and sound signals.

Part 2: when boats meet

• Rule 14 broadened. A boat must also avoid causing contact between two other boats, and between a boat and an object that should be avoided, including race committee vessels.
• Rule 17. An overlap may now be created while the windward boat is still tacking.
• Rule 18 restructured into clearer subsections at 18.2, with clarification of first to the zone and of leaving a mark astern.
• Rule 19. A right of way boat that changes course must give the other boat room to keep clear.
• Rule 20. The hail is now a required form of words. You must say "room to tack".

Part 4 and the appendices

• Rule 40.2. The personal flotation device requirement can now be brought into force by class rules, as well as by the notice of race or sailing instructions.
• Rule 44.3. Scoring penalties are calculated from a boat's points rather than her place, rounded to the nearest tenth of a point.
• Rule 56.3. A new rule on tracking and identification systems. Read this one in the official book before you write it into your sailing instructions, because published summaries describe it differently.
• Match racing, team racing, windsurfing and kiteboarding appendices were all revised, and appeal timeframes shortened from 15 days to 7.

What a Race Officer should actually do about it

1. Search your notice of race and sailing instructions templates for every rule number in the 60s and correct them. Redress is 61, not 62.
2. Update your abandonment cheat sheet. Flag N with three sounds now appears both before the start under 27.3 and after the start under 32.3.
3. Change "finish within the time limit" to "sail the course within the time limit" in your documents and briefings.
4. Re-read rule 56.3 in the official book, not in a summary.
5. Check that your kit still supports the decisions you have to defend. See what a Race Officer actually needs on the water.

Where to read the official text

Do not take rule numbers from a blog post, including this one, into a jury room. Read the book.

• World Sailing, the current Racing Rules of Sailing
• US Sailing, the 2025-2028 hub with redline and study materials
• RYA, changes to the racing rules