Yes.  Case 92 is actually relevant to course changes.  So does not support JohnS's case as clearly as I purported.  (Removed Case 92 from my post. Thanks.)

Long start lines - yes.  That's a result of this conflict isn't it.  If going by pure risk free then start lines would need to be extra long.  But why isn't anyone pushing for this?

Safety is the overall measure of risk, not necessarily 'risk free'.  For the number of occasions OPs scenario crops up over the thousand's of starts, the sailing world has accepted the risk of a mainsheet being dropped, and shortened the start lines to be practical.

So the sailing world comes up with a number (something like1.3 X the total length of all boats) as being the recommended length of a start line.

Looks nifty thanks Michael - will pass along to the Bodies here in the Philippines

Richard, thank you for your open minded response, but i agree with Sue that relaxing the promptness of the hail and RRS 44 penalty requirements would be undesirable.

One of the purposes of the suggestion was to reinforce the requirements for prompt hail and prompt response.

If you let go of those requirements you will get into all sorts of disputes about:

AIUI the purpose of making the respondent (not a word in this RRS) field mandatory is that the system automatically messages that entity that they are the subject of a hearing.  Naming a boat there will make it appear that that boat has been protested.

Wouldn't a better solution for requests fo  redress be to either omit the respondent field or make it non mandatory, and message the race committee that a request has been received in every case?

Thank you for everything that you do.