ralph kelley wrote:any rule [...] must result in a craft that is inspectable in a non-destructive manner using normal tools that a measurer could be expected to have available.
Ralph is saying that conformance to a rule must be able to be verified, and this is a widely-held point of view. Ralph adds that, for the IOM, this verification needs to be relatively straightforward, and again this is a common and very reasonable expectation.
It gets interesting, though, when we look at the converse of the idea. That is, shall a rule be deleted from the book if it cannot be straightforwardly verified? Shall the IOM rules only comprise verifiable ones?
Here are some 'for instances' of a current IOM rule that is, in some straightforward way, not verifiable:
- The spar shall be aluminium alloy of 2024, 6005, 6061, 6063, 6082 or 7075 grade
- Alteration or repair of equipment required by the measurement form(s) to be measured
- Except for control unit positioning information, no radio transmissions from the boat shall be made (Note that this does not ban transmission from the boat. Transmission from the boat is permitted as long as it consists only of control unit position information.)
- Adhesive, resin, etc, shall not have 'extra' added materials
- Thermoplastic containing only permitted materials
- Materials shall not be of density higher than lead
- The difference between largest and smallest wall thickness shall not exceed 0.1 mm
- Sail panel is joined by welding; gluing; bonding with self adhesive tapes/materials
From these examples, and I'm sure there are others, it isn't clear to me that, if compliance with a rule can't be verified, the rule should be deleted.
It also isn't clear to me that, in principle in an ideal world, we should only have verifiable rules for our game. Certainly, verifiable rules make playing the game much easier all round. But what if there is a rule that we generally think is a good and important rule and we really should have it, except that it isn't verifiable? For me, we should go ahead and have it anyway, if we think it is that good and that important.
So, having verifiable rules is a guideline, an ideal perhaps, but is not an absolute criterion that prevents such a rule if considered otherwise desirable. And the above is the "highlights list" of such rules that the IOM has.