How to Learn the Most from This Book Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism
It is one goal of this book to help you learn and understand the rules and the appeals/cases better. It is an equal goal to help you see how you can continue to answer your own rules questions as they arise, whether in the position of a competitor, a race committee member or a judge. Here are some suggestions that will make it much easier for you to accomplish both.
D O N ’ T T R Y T O MEMO R I Z E T H E R U L E S
It is the wrong approach to try to memorize the four situations where a port- tack boat has right of way over a starboard-tack boat, just as it’s confusing to try to simply memorize the entire text of rule 18.2 (Giving Mark-Room). Each rule has a clear purpose, which I have tried to explain thoroughly. You’ll learn and remember the rules faster and more clearly if you take a step back and try to see exactly what actions each rule is trying to produce or eliminate. For example, when you are over the starting line at the gun you have taken an unfair head start on your competitors. You can remedy your mistake simply by returning behind the line and starting properly; and it makes complete sense that while you are returning you have to stay out of the way of boats that have started correctly. This is the purpose of rule 28.1 (Sailing the Race) and rule 21 (Starting Errors; Penalty Turns; Backing a Sail), which you can easily understand and apply in your racing without knowing the exact wording of each rule.
