Just Say No to IRPCAS

Rob Overton, Chairman of the US Racing Rules Committee, finds fault in how offshore races can be governed by instructions that won’t work. Here he explains…

The Preamble to Part 2 of the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) contains an interesting provision: “If the sailing instructions so state, the rules of Part 2 are replaced by the right-of-way rules of the IRPCAS or by government right-of-way rules.” (IRPCAS stands for International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, usually called the COLREGS)

The rules of Part 2 govern the conduct of racing sailboats when they meet, including right of way, mark-room, and room at obstructions. In theory, regatta organizers could throw out those rules and substitute the IRPCAS rules of the road for their entire regatta, but I’ve never heard of this being done. The only situation I’ve heard of in which IRPCAS rules replace the rules of Part 2 is for long-distance races, and even then, only during hours of darkness. But even in that limited application, IRPCAS rules of the road don’t really work for sailboats racing each other.

The idea behind invoking IRPCAS rules in long-distance races is that those rules don’t allow close maneuvering, so the boats would be safer than they are under the rules of Part 2. But I have the feeling that many of the folks who write sailing instructions replacing RRS Part 2 with IRPCAS rules of the road really don’t understand what they’re doing. Here are a few facts about the IRPCAS rules as they would apply to sailboats racing: full report