A New Rule Interpretation by Dave Perry - Taking a Penalty

On  January 1, 2013, the new edition of The Racing Rules of Sailing went into effect. These rules are locked in through 2016. Dave Perry returns to the US Sailing Blog to explain some of the significant changes to the rules. Dave is a welcome authority on the rules, as chairman of the US Sailing Appeals Committee, Rules Advisor to the US Olympic Sailing Team and Artemis Racing, the Challenger for the America’s Cup, co-author of the North U Rules & Tactics seminar, and author of two books on the subject. Read Dave's interpretation of the rules regarding penalties:

2) Rule 44 (Penalties at the time of an incident) has been clarified to say that a boat need only take one penalty per incident, regardless of the number of rules that may have been broken in that incident; and if the sailing instructions state a different alternative penalty is being used, such as the Scoring Penalty, then that penalty replaces the One-Turn and the Two-Turns Penalty.

Rule 44.1, Taking a Penalty:  A boat may take a Two-Turns Penalty when she may have broken one or more rules of Part 2 in an incident while racing. She may take a One-Turn Penalty when she may have broken rule 31. Alternatively, sailing instructions may specify the use of the Scoring Penalty or some other penalty, in which case the specified penalty shall replace the One-Turn and the Two-Turns Penalty.

For more on the rules, get Dave Perry’s Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing through 2016 (which includes the complete rule book) and Dave Perry’s 100 Best Racing Rules Quizzes available at the US Sailing Store, and attend a North U Rules & Tactics Seminar, discounted for US Sailing members.