ISAF is the International Sailing Federation. ISAF is responsible for and owns copyright of the Racing Rules of Sailing (a.k.a. RRS). These are under constant review and a new revision is released every 4 years. The current RRS are valid for 2009-2012.
A pdf file of the Racing Rules of Sailing can be downloaded from the Documents and Rules page at www.sailing.org which is the official website for ISAF.
There are appendices for Match racing, Team racing, Wind surfing and even Radio Controlled boat racing. There is not (yet!) an appendix for VSK racing but we don't need to wait for ISAF to get on board to roll our own appendix here!
Discussion of the RRS at this wiki[]
The auto-umpire implemented in VSK5 does a reasonably faithful job of enforcing the ISAF RRS that were current at the time of the game's development however, it is far from perfect and since many racing skippers are keen competitors the discrepancy between what you can get away with in a virtual regatta and what you would be disqualified for in a real life regatta is often the source of argument.
- The Rule mapping table is handy reference showing the VSK rule, the ISAF rule (link to wiki article) and a brief summary.
There may also be an etiquette of sailing which has no foundation in the rules or at best a tenuous link via rule 2 - fair play. Each host of a race on the network of public servers is within their rights to impose house rules much like you might encounter when playing a game of poker or monopoly or scrabble at the homes of different friends. Unfortunately these rules can also lead to disagreement but at least there is no opponent pointing a revolver at your belly from under the poker table!
- In articles discussing a rule the verbatim quote from ISAF RRS will be identified in a colored block as follows:
- direct quote fron ISAF RRS
- To make this both convenient and consistent the VSK template rrs has been created. viz.
{{rrs|begin}}direct quote fron ISAF RRS{{rrs|end}}- That template is easily accessible from a table near the bottom of every edit page on this wiki. Just highlight the text and click on the link from the VSK templates list in that table.
This is designed to clearly separate the rules from the discussion/interpretation of the rules especially where the VSK implementation differs from the letter of the ISAF RRS. If ever this wiki is required to give explicit attribution to ISAF for every quote from the RRS then that can easily be implemented by editing just the one template instead of editing numerous articles.
Auto umpire known limitations[]
- rule 17.1 Proper course
- rule 19 Room at obstruction (land)
- rule 23 Interference
- rule 21 Keeping clear
Rules versus etiquette[]
- NPC races
- Pen hunters
- Bad language
- Transparent sails