Category Archives: Communiqués

2013 IOM Class Rules

The Techincal Sub-Committee has prepared the 2013 IOM Class Rules, effective 1st. March 2013.

The Rig and Hull Measurement forms have  been updated.

See Class Rules page.

2013  Certification Control Measurement Forms

There have been changes in the forms to reflect rule changes which are noted in the following, but there is no change in the process

Certification Measurement Form

With the changes in the class rules to allow pigmentation of resins used in the moulding of hulls and the difficulty in examining the interior of many hulls, the declarations required on the Certification Measurement Form have been modified to require the builder of the hull to declare that the materials used in the construction of the hull / boat are in compliance with the class rules. The simplest way to deal with the Declaration would be for the builder to include a pre-signed Certification Measurement form with the boat at delivery to the owner.  Alternately if a completed boat is not being delivered to provide a declaration that to the best of his knowledge the components supplied meet the requirements of the class rules.

The Certification Measurement Form remains the only form required to be sent to and retained by a NCA as the result of a successful certification control measurement. The method of storage is the NCA’s decision

Additional Rigs Form

Should the boat be certificated with less than the full complement of rigs then the Additional Rigs Form may be used to add additional rigs to a certificate.  Once the certificate has been up dated then it need not be retained.

Check Lists

The two Check List forms are for the measurers use in conducting a certification measurement.  They are not required to be sent to the NCA.   As such, these check lists should be thought of as a work sheet of checks to be observed by the official measurer in a measurement only and if the boat complies with all the statements then there would be no further use for them.  The check lists might be of some use to the owner of a boat which failed measurement as a record of what has to be corrected before a certificate is issued.

Measurer’s record

This is not part of the Certification Measurement Forms but is only given as a suggestion of a means of a measurer recording measurements he, or she has completed.

Builder

The term “builder” on the Certification Control Form is to be interpreted to mean the person who assembles the boat to sailing condition from its individual components.

The builder should then satisfy him, or herself, that the various components meet the current class rules.

Where there is any doubt as to the component’s compliance, the builder should ask his supplier to provide a declaration certifying the component being supplied complies with the current class rules.  This should be available to the Official Measurer at certification control measurement.

In the case of a hull the molder may wish to add a declaration for this purpose to his molder’s tag.

Such a declaration should not be confused with the boat’s certificate resulting from measurement.

Legality of single panel sails and their method of construction.

IOM ICA has become aware of some email notes from one of our NCA Technical groups. In those notes there are a number of inconsistent statements and some very wrong assumptions and advice.

For the purpose of this letter we will restrict our comments and direction to the ones  concerning the use of single panel sails on IOM Class boats.

That note continues to reference a 2003 based response to a Request for Interpretation regarding that style of sail. Although that response deemed those sails to be illegal at that time, sometime after the authors of that response indicated that they may have erred in their judgement. And, in 2005, with no changes to the Class Rules having been undertaken, that official response was no longer in effect.

Following the World Championship Regatta in 2011, we received another Request for Interpretation concerning the use of single panel sails and their construction. The response to that request was that the sails were legal under the existing rule and indicated that there was no need for any change of rule. They are legal under the current (and immediately previous) Class Rules. This ruling was prepared by the IOM ICA (the authorised governing body for the IOM Class) Technical Sub Committee and subsequently submitted to the IRSA (the recognized and authorised governing body for Radio Sailing worldwide)

Technical Chairman for approval. That approval, without further comment or direction was given prior to publicly issuing the response

That interpretation response is in effect now. Further, because it did not require a rule change to validate those sails (or their construction method), its result will continue to be in effect. They are constructed of a legal material and fit all other definitions for sails that are contained in the Class Rules. They must of course always pass any measuring test, as do sails constructed in any manner, regardless of how many panels they may have.

NCA Class Secretaries and/or their technical groups must refrain from making interpretative declarations concerning the IOM Class Rules. Opinion and declarations must support the findings of the Class Association and the Radio Sailing governing body.

We encourage the appropriate technical bodies in any NCA to field technical questions, submit Requests for Interpretation and offer their opinions and beliefs. However, it is the responsibility of the NCA to enforce the rules as issued and interpreted

by IRSA, the Radio Sailing governing body, and the Class Association. It is not unusual that there are many individual rules within the Class Rules that are not favoured by one country, or person. That occurs in almost everything that goes on in life.

Everyone can expect that rulings may not always go as they wish they would.

Barry Fox, IOM ICA Chairman

2014 IOM European Championships.

IOMICA Events SC has received expression of interest from 2 countries for that event: Italy and France.
We ask those countries and all others which may be interested to formalise a bid by sending IOMICA questionnaire before january 31st 2013 midnight CET to vcevents”at”iomclass.org.