<p>Question 22:</p> <p>The following are a series of questions that the Class Technical Officer has received from owners and sail makers in the lead up to end of the year:</p> <p>1. When do we need to use our 2024 sail buttons by?</p> <p>2. When is a boat eligible to receive its sail buttons?</p> <p>3. Is a new boat purchased at the end of the year entitled to the ‘double’ sail button allowance?</p> <p>4. Which Spinnakers will be ‘grandfathered’ into 2025?/p>
1. The Sail buttons in the CMS are the method of enforcing the sail allocation in class rule G.2.4(a) which runs from 1 January to 31 December. Accordingly, to use 2024 sail buttons on the CMS; the serial number from the certification mark (or sail if the certification mark does not have a serial number) must be input to the button in the boat's CMS account before 00:00 on 01 January 2025 (UTC).
2. An existing boat is eligible for sail buttons upon paying its international class membership in the year it wishes to receive sail buttons. At this point it will be issued buttons in the CMS for it to input the relevant sail information.
Any new boat is eligible to receive sail buttons upon making its final payment to the licenced builder thereby taking ownership of the boat and then paying its international class membership for the year it wishes to receive buttons.
3. The ‘double allowance’ for sail buttons refers to the last sentence in current class rule G.2.4(a) (2024 class rules):
”In addition, a new boat, in its first calendar year of class racing may declare the allotment above twice i.e. is entitled to two full suits of sails in its first year of racing.”
Therefore, any new boat is eligible for the double allowance in 2024 if it has taken part in one or more class events in 2024 noting the allowance refers to a boat’s first year of racing. NB The double allowance is removed from the 2025 class rules i.e. is no longer available from 1 January 2025 as voted for during the 2023 Class AGM.
4. As the limitation of 3 spinnakers applies from 1 January 2025 as voted for during the 2023 Class AGM, any spinnaker that was in existence and certified before this is exempt from needing a button and being declared in the CMS noting class rule G.2.1(a) requires sails to comply with the rules in force at the time of certification. At events the date on the certification mark will be used to verify the year of the sail.
Andy Wibroe
Technical Officer