Without requiring the hulls to be symmetrical about a plane, there is no way to define the hull's vertical plane. Also, is someone tried to turn the rudders, they would no longer be in the plane. To begin, some definitions:

A. The rudder plane is the rudder's plane of symmetry.

B. The rudder plane at rest is the rudder plane when the rudder is angled so that the rudder plane is parallel with the boat's longitudinal axis (an ERS defined term).

C. The daggerboard plane is the daggerboard's plane of symmetry.

D. The daggerboard plane at rest is the daggerboard plane when the daggerboard is angled so that the rudder plane is parallel with the boat's longitudinal axis.

I would write the rule with a combination of these three rules:

1. The rudder plane at rest and the daggerboard plane at rest shall be parallel to the boat's longitudinal and vertical axes.

2. The rudder plane at rest and the daggerboard plane at rest for the daggerboard and rudder on the same side shall be in the same plane.

3. The head of the daggerboard when fully retracted and the tip of the daggerboard when fully extended shall not protrude beyond the beam restriction.

I would also add a few more rules:

4. No part of a daggerboard or rudder may lie more than 20 mm from its plane of symmetry.

5. Each rudder or daggerboard may only rotate around one axis. That axis shall be parallel to its plane of symmetry.

Rule 1 is easy to enforce. But, it would outlaw the Infusion. Rule 2 would allow daggerboard to be canted at any angle as long as the rudders were canted the same amount. Rule 3 should probably be in any combination of rules. Because I think boat tech is cool, I wouldn't mind having only rule 3 in place.

The current rule for reference:

The board cases, the daggerboards and the rudders shall be positioned in the centre plane of the hulls, and the under water parts of the boards and of the rudders shall be symmetrical.

Rule 5: what about rudder rake adjustments? Is that a second axis?

Guys, you are working on the old rules. That wording has already changed. I was on that WP and I challenged trying to find wholes in any way I could, including curved, canted, and else with cads ,examples etc.

Andrew G along Greg were the native english spoken on that group.

The only wording they wanted to add was limiting lenght to 140cm. Just check last minutes , I think the new wording is there. Will check and re post.

Published minutes Dec 2011.

Proposal :
To update class rules by adding :
“ The maximum length of a dagger board protruding from the bottom of the hull shall be 1400mm.”
The WC agreed unanimously with their recommendation for application 31.12.2011.
• Daggerboard and hull geometry discussion:
The WC received the report from the Daggerboard geometry Working Party, Chaired by Andrew Gallagher. The President thanked them for their detailed work.
The WP concluded that the rules as they currently exist prohibit curved and canted boards. However, to avoid confusion a clarification can be added, with a manufacturing tolerance:
E.3.3(x) Curved daggerboards are not allowed. A manufacturing tolerance of 10mm of curvature over the total length of the board is allowed.
Agreed unanimously
The WP reported that many elements of the ERS do not suit multihulls. The boat centreplane of a multihull is not defined. The WP suggested a clarification defining this as:
D.6.x The boat centreplane is the vertical longitudinal plane of the boat which passes through the centre point of the front and rear beams.
D.6.x The assembled hulls and beams must be symmetric about the boat centreplane.
D.2.x The hull centerplane means a longitudinal plane of symmetry of a hull.

Maybe it could to say one axis while racing and allow an axis to kick up the rudders?

How is that rule going to work without requiring the hulls to be symmetrical? The Infusion, for example, doesn't have symmetrical hulls.

Already checked, I even contacted Pete Melvin and Fischer for their feedback.
Missed to paste this:


The WP indicated that the rules already refer to the hull centreplane, which indirectly requires the hull to be symmetric. The WP was not aware of any F18 designs with assymetric hulls. For clarity of the rules and definitions it was proposed to add:
D.2.x Only the parts of the hull under the waterline must be symmetric.
Agreed unanimously
This allowed a clear definition of the hull centreplane, allowing a new rule governing the restriction of inward-canting hulls, and thus boards:
X.x.x Hulls and their appendages may be canted outwards at the keel. Canting the hulls and their appendages inwards at the keel is prohibited, except where this is caused by curvature in the front beam as per rule D.4.2.
The maximum boat beam shall be 2.60 m with hull appendages in completely down position.

You might want to check an actual boat. If you put Infusion hulls on backwards they cant inward instead of outward. I wouldn't call that symmetrical. I think the boat uses four hull molds too.

I would check with ISAF that they think that implicitly referenced rules are enforceable.

I'm fine with making rule say that the hulls shall be symmetrical. But, the rule shouldn't be implied. It should be explicit and clearly articulated. The AC72 rule (written by Pete Melvin) does a good job wording this by defining areas of the hull shells that shall be symmetrical and areas that can be symmetrical.

Rules that are implied or require knowledge of the rule's intentions are bad rules. Good rule clearly define what is and what is not legal. A good rule has well defined terms and must have a way to test if the rule is followed.

A lot of this is made difficult because F18 uses closed class rules instead of open class rules. In a closed class the ERS say, "anything not specifically permitted by the class rules is prohibited." So, the rules have to say "specifically" if symmetric hulls and/or asymmetric hulls are permitted. So, the rules need to be thorough enough to describe everything on the boat. The rules are not at that point.

A few ideas:
1) The forum for communication of rulings and complaints should be more transparent, accessible and obvious. When having an open meeting, post an agenda. Solicit agenda items. Cascade to Fleet reps. Run any open meetings via skype . All international meetings held in English.
2) Any persons ruling to advance an agenda (i.e. conflicts of interest, unethical behavior), will be dealt with harshly, i.e. loss or suspension of eligibility from the class, and removal from the ruling body. Cascade to regatta organizers. Enforce.
3) All complaint proceedings are private matters, until issuance of ruling. In the event that standings are affected by equipment interpretations, unless an example of egregious cheating (i.e. weight, sail plan, obvious box rule transgressions) all equipment complaints on-site should be considered ‘pending equipment appeal to the F18 ruling body’. This will limit on-site rulings to ‘on-the-water’ fouls and basic rules interpretations, rather than arcane equipment, or manufacturing rulings. Also, keeping the complaints private will cool and eliminate unnecessary 'churn' and acrimony. After ruling, cascade complaints and rulings, with simple allowed/disallowed rulings and a simple summary, to all National designees to all international web sites. Let the churn happen thereafter. This will avoid ruling by consensus opinion, which is both slow, and provides unacceptable sanctuary for executive leadership shortfalls.
4) Throw out all trivial equipment grievances immediately. (i.e. a sponsor's paint job, or decal as 'performance enhancing'). Inundating the ruling body with grievances is also not an acceptable means to influence race outcomes. Repeat trivial challenge offenders will be reprimanded by the ruling body, with penalties amounting to event suspension or disqualification, as a disincentive for recidivist ‘challenge’ behaviors.
5) When rules change, provide a context or explanation for the proposed change. A newsletter, or better yet, an appendix, specifying the nature and background of on proposed changes, along with the draft would be sufficient. Use a marked up adobe pdf as the draft document. Cascade to Fleet reps.
6) Rule in clear, concise, unambiguous English, using specific terminology. (The compass discussion was an example of an unintelligible mandate. The ruling body should have just listed devices that were class legal or illegal, or pending review.) If a device, or proposal is new, have the device owner or manufacturer submit the device manual, or proposed change for a ruling. Sometimes this can be a win-win situation. Make the equipment ruling mandate process decipherable to average sailors. Cascade to Fleet reps.
7) Decisions should be fast, fair unambiguous and final. Avoid ambiguity and jargon. The ruling body shall provide a list of pending actions and specific dates for when specific rulings/ rule challenges will occur. Cascade to Fleet reps.
8) Finally, Cost/performance analysis; The F18 Box rule was/is meant to keep the class inexpensive;
a) if an equipment innovation is cheaper and better, and fosters healthy manufacturing, better competition, faster learning, or is simply practical (speedpucks, certain sail cloths), safer (rudimentary GPS devices, tracking apparatus, etc.) or historical/unavoidable (paint, decals) it’s in. Common sense is better than arcane twisted logic or rationalizations.
b) If equipment very significantly drives up cost over an existing standard , or renders large numbers of boats competitively obsolete, it should be carefully reviewed. With the recent long-board discussion, I believe the main cost flash point for the F18 class was confronted in a generally positive and proactive fashion. However, the communication of the ruling was unnecessarily obtuse and difficult to interpret.
5) Manufacturers should meet annually with the class ruling body to discuss any design specification proposals, or concerns over new designs that may imperil the health of the class. Manufacturers should regard F18 cost containment as the Box Rule ‘high ground’.

Respectfully, Rex Denton

I agree. In fact, any class rule rulings should be posted for everyone to see. I like the spirit. But, I don't know how to enforce it. It would help if I understood how the World Council and Technical Committee is selected. This is probably not a good idea. I haven't heard anyone complain that there are too many grievances to handle and we don't want someone deciding what is trivial and what is not. What we should do is not have rules about trivial stuff.
We should be doing a lot of these things regardless of class rules. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a quarterly class newsletter so that we know what is going on in the class? I think we just need volunteers. I would, but I can't write very well.
I agree. I'm not convinced anyone can make and objective determination what effect a rule will have on the cost to compete in the class. For example, how should initial cost and longevity be weighed? I know that no one has an objective way to say if one boat is faster than another. I'd be happy with rules that are largely what they are today, but with more clarity and specificity.

This is ambiguous. Suggest the following:
The boat centreplane is defined as the vertical longitudinal plane of the boat each individual hull passing through the centre point of attachment to front and rear beams. The daggger boards and rudders will be at 90 degrees to the angle of attachment to the beams, with their major axis parallel, and in line with the centerplane.

That would make the Infusion illegal. The hulls, rudders, and daggerboards are canted outward. Also, better wording would reuse definitions from ISAF's Equipment Rules of Sailing (ERS) because the definitions are well defined through use in many classes.

No. Actually, it was written with the Infusion and Cap in mind...re-read it, and remember that the 'angle of attachment to the beams' is canted 4 degrees on the Infusion. I own one...and, uhhh, had to make a minor repair of sorts that made me very familiar with the design specs...Long story thats all figured out now!

Provide a definition for the "angle of attachment to the beams" because it is not clear to me what that is. Are you suggesting that the attachment (beam landings?) is something separate from the rest of the hull?

Here is the AC72 rule that I like:

F18VB: Actual pictures of the Infusion, cads with angles and else were provided at working party, the AC72 rules was also analyzed.

They said it was going to be all published, but not todate.
I challenged every single option you can imagine, even an hexagonal shaped hull (cross cut) where no center plane could be defined if dagger case used canted joining two angles of the hex.

With the Inf and this came the lengh of the daggers coming outside the width limit on 260cm.
And with the others contribution they reach that wording.
Although I didn´t have the final "cut" on wording as they said it was enough with above.

I think it covers most of your points though.

I agree that the majority of the surface of an Infusion's hull is symmetrical. However, the beam landings are not symmetrical about the same plane. The rules could say that the beam landings don't need to be symmetrical. But, the rules need to define clearly what a beam landing is.

Your hexagon example isn't a problem. The hulls could be cylindrical and they would still have a plane of symmetry. A hexagon has 6planes of symmetry, a cylinder has an infinite number of plane sof symmetry. They key is that the rudders and daggerboards are on one of the planes of symmetry.

Yes , Greg put the cilindrical example too.
But a good Hex shape, was more feasible to be used.

They said that the Infusion hull is "stepped" on the beam attachments and the rest is symmetrical, thus the symmetry below the waterline wording. Although I didn´t want to limit hulls to symmetric shapes only.

The Hex example was to provide a loopwhole for the hull/daggercase vertical plane.(previous wording)

I missed the waterline statement. That is a good start.

But, now we need a definition of the measurement trim for determining the waterline because waterline is a defined term in the ERS. Should the sails be on the boat? If so, where should they be? Should the mast be on the boat? If so, how much rake should it have? Since it flies a hull most of the time, should it be measured in hull flying position?

This needs to be a very exact measurement because the hulls are not very wide or deep. An error of 1 cm could probably allow the foils to be canted 20 degrees. The symmetry rule needs to have tolerances defined.

If a hull is canted, the waterline is not perpendicular to the the hull's plane of symmetry. So, does that mean that the side of the hull that is deeper in the water (inside of an infusion hull) can be symmetrical with part of the hull above the waterline?

Do we really want builders to be able to do whatever they want above the waterline? What if the port and starboard hull shells nearly came together in the middle? I have wanted to do this on my boat to make an aerodynamic fairing for the beams. But, the rules were not clear if this would be allowed. If we allow asymmetry above the waterline, this would clearly be allowed.

I'd also like to point out that this is a fundamental rule change. Boats never used to need to be symmetrical below the waterline. If we want to change the rule, we should do some with a great deal of contemplation or not do it at all.

The "Waterline" was added at the end, no further discussions were made on that, it was just added.

They said no assymetric hull existed todate, so no issue was devised.

Someone from outside the WC/TC recommended to keep the rules (all) simple, and I think it is key, as you close the doors with x wording and a "waterline" opened a new can of worms for ie.

Simple as a concept of course, as the previous daggercase rules was 'simple' or short but not a defining rule with plenty of room to play with, even curved boards were allowed in my view.

Why not state that the beams must be straight and the dagger boards and rudders must run at 90 degrees to the beam??

Then lock in underwater symmetry of the hulls along those reference points.