A boat shall use only the equipment on board at her preparatory signal.

No person on board shall intentionally leave, except when ill or injured, or to help a person or vessel in danger, or to swim. A person leaving the boat by accident or to swim shall be back in contact with the boat before the crew resumes sailing the boat to the next mark. 

  

Competitors shall use no device designed to position their bodies outboard, other than hiking straps and stiffeners worn under the thighs.

  

When lifelines are required by the class rules or any other rule, competitors shall not position any part of their torsos outside them, except briefly to perform a necessary task. On boats equipped with upper and lower lifelines, a competitor sitting facing outboard with his waist inside the lower lifeline may have the upper part of his body outside the upper lifeline. Unless a class rule or any other rule specifies a maximum deflection, lifelines shall be taut. If the class rules do not specify the material or minimum diameter of lifelines, they shall comply with the corresponding specifications in the World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations.  

Note: Those regulations are available at the World Sailing website.

           Note: Rule 50.1(c) does not take effect until 1 January 2023.

 

Rules 50.1(b) and (c) do not apply to boats required to be equipped with lifelines.

All movable ballast, including sails that are not set, shall be properly stowed. Water, dead weight or ballast shall not be moved for the purpose of changing trim or stability. Floorboards, bulkheads, doors, stairs and water tanks shall be left in place and all cabin fixtures kept on board. However, bilge water may be bailed out. 

A boat’s standing rigging, running rigging, spars and movable hull appendages shall be adjusted and operated only by the power provided by the crew.

A boat shall not eject or release a substance, such as a polymer, or have specially textured surfaces that could improve the character of the flow of water inside the boundary layer.

Forestays and headsail tacks, except those of spinnaker staysails when the boat is not close-hauled, shall be attached approximately on a boat’s centreline.

Note: The Equipment Rules of Sailing are available at the World Sailing website.

When headsails or spinnakers are being changed, a replacing sail may be fully set and trimmed before the replaced sail is lowered. However, only one mainsail and, except when changing, only one spinnaker shall be carried set at a time.

Only one spinnaker pole or whisker pole shall be used at a time except when gybing. When in use, it shall be attached to the foremost mast.  

No sail shall be sheeted over or through any device that exerts outward pressure on a sheet or clew of a sail at a point from which, with the boat upright, a vertical line would fall outside the hull or deck, except:

For the purposes of rules 54 and 55 and Appendix G, the definitions of ‘headsail’ and ‘spinnaker’ in The Equipment Rules of Sailing shall be used.
 

  

When so equipped, a boat shall sound fog signals and show lights as required by the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (IRPCAS) or applicable government rules.  

A boat shall comply with rule 10, Traffic Separation Schemes, of the IRPCAS.

Note: Appendix TS, Traffic Separation Schemes, is available at the World Sailing website. The notice of race may change rule 56.2 by stating that Section A, Section B or Section C of Appendix TS applies.