US Sailing Mandatory Membership Proposal

Text of the Draft requiring mandatory membership in US Sailing to race. Draft Prescriptions from the Racing Rules Committee to implement Board policy with respect to required membership in US SAILING, plus a comment: 1. Add a new prescription to rule 46 as shown below: 46 Person in Charge; Membership Requirement A boat shall have on board a person in charge designated by the member or organization that entered the boat. See rule 75. US SAILING prescribes that the person in charge and each helmsperson shall be members of us SAILING or their own national authority. However, any person may steer the boat for reasons of safety or briefly while the 'helmsperson performs a necessary task. This prescription does not apply to [insert one of the optional inserts shown below in red], and it does not apply at an event for which the organizing authority has obtained a written waiver of the prescription's requirement from US SAILING. Optional insert # 1 local races Note: Some of the RRC members recommend defining local as the Appeals Committee in Question 58, where it stated, "Local races are those in which normally the same group of people :from a limited geographic area regularly race together." Optional insert #2 a competitor who races only on weekdays Optional insert #3 . a competitor who races in fivee or fewer races a year. 2. Include the prescription to rule 46 in the list of prescriptions in the prescription to rule 87 (which, in 2009, will become rule 88). With that addition, the prescription to rule 87 will then state that sailing instructions s~ not change the prescription to rule 46. 3. Add two new prescriptions that will have the effect of requiring an event's notice of race to state that rule 46' s prescription will not apply when US SAILING has issued a waiver of the prescription's requirement for the event. Here are drafts of those two prescriptions: . Add a new prescription to be rule J1.2(15) in Appendix J: (15) an exemption, if obtained in writing from US SAILING, to the membership requirements of the prescription to rule 46. Add a new prescription to be paragraph 3.5 in Appendix K, Notice of Race Guide: 3.5 The US SAILING membership requirement in the prescription to rule 46 has been waived/or this event with written permission/rom US SAILING. Marginal note appear in the left margin. opposite new paragraph 3.5: This paragraph is a US SAILING prescription, to be used only when US SAILING has stated in writing that the prescription to rule 46 has been waived for the event 4. Note to the Board concerning Waivers of the membership requirements in the prescription to rule 46: The RRC believes that there may be legal requirements under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and/or The Education Act of 1972 that US SAILING must comply with. (Note: The Education Act of 1972 is often referred to as 'Title IX', which is the title of one part of that act.) . In particular, to comply with one or both of these acts it may be necessary for US SAILING to issue blanket exemptions to the membership requirement for some groups, such as the Interscholastic Sailing Association, the Intercollegiate Sailing Association, and the U. S. Armed Forces. The Racing Rules Committee suggests that the Board ask the Legal Committee to look into this. . . Two specific issues that the Legal Committee might consider are: 1. Section" 220526 of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act refers to ''high school students, college students, members of the Armed Forces, or similar groups and categories." 2. Whether a waiver, as described in the last three lines of the draft prescription to rule 46 shown above, meets the requirements of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and The Education Act of 1972.